Disaster recovery and business continuity are tightly related. In the 1970s, organizations started preparing Disaster Recovery (DR) plans, which were mainly focused on natural disasters. In the 1980s and onwards, the focus shifted to a more holistic view, named Business Continuity (BC). Show
While disaster recovery narrowly focused on how to bring systems back online after a disaster, business continuity aimed to develop a proactive process that would keep businesses alive and operating even in the face of a major crisis. Accordingly, a disaster recovery plan is limited to ensuring data protection, preventing damage to systems and recovering them as quickly as possible, while a business continuity plan covers all aspects of the business including business processes, manpower, partners and suppliers. In this article you learn: What is a Business Continuity Plan?A business continuity plan details how a business will continue operating and serving its customers, even in the face of a dramatic event like a natural disaster, major IT failure, or a cyberattack. The end goal is to preserve a company’s financial viability, market position, reputation, and customers, even in the face of a crisis. Business continuity planning covers every aspect of the business including:
A business continuity plan must consider important questions and provide good answers. What single points of failure exist in the organization? What are the critical dependencies on equipment, in-house staff, suppliers or other third parties? What workarounds exist for disruption of any of these? Which organizational processes, staff, skills and technology are needed to maintain business operations and fully recover from a disaster? 7 Chapters of a Business Continuity PlanA typical business continuity plan contains the following sections:
Business Continuity vs. Disaster Recovery PlanThe terms business continuity plan and disaster recovery plan are sometimes used interchangeably. However, as we illustrated in our plan structure above, a disaster recovery plan is an important section within a business continuity plan. See our article about IT disaster recovery plans. The table below illustrates how a business continuity plan differs from an IT disaster recovery plan—it touches on the same aspects but from a holistic business perspective.
Business Continuity Plan in Action: Hour by HourOnce you have a business continuity plan, here is what a crisis could look like, hour by hour, as the plan unfolds. The activities below are just examples, and of course, will vary depending on the crisis and the nature of the business.
Ensuring Business Continuity for Your Data with CloudianCloudian offers low-cost disk-based storage that lets you store up to 1.5 Petabytes of backups. The Cloudian appliance can be deployed in your local data center, or in a remote DR site. We provide integrated data management tools that let you store data seamlessly to a remote appliance. Cloudian also supports a hybrid cloud setup. The Cloudian appliance can replicate your data to a cloud storage service such as Amazon S3, Azure Blob Storage or Google Cloud Storage. This allows you to backup data frequently and enjoy fast local access while keeping a copy of data on the cloud in case the on-premise data center goes down. Learn more about Cloudian’s data protection solutions. People often use the terms disaster recovery and business continuity planning interchangeably, but while these two terms are similar, they describe two different approaches businesses take to bounce back in the event of a disaster. So what is the difference between a disaster recovery plan and business continuity plan? The answer varies a little depending on who you ask, but the basic rule of thumb is this: A business continuity plan is focused on all aspects of disaster planning as it relates to preventing an interruption to business operations. A disaster recovery plan is focused more specifically on the response and recovery stages of a disaster, especially in regards to IT systems. To further differentiate these concepts, let’s look at each plan individually:
According to Dell, a business continuity plan is a strategy that businesses put in place to continue operating with minimal disruption in the event of a disaster. A disaster recovery plan is more specific. It’s a plan to “restore the data and applications that run your business should your data center, servers or other infrastructure get damaged or destroyed.” Below, we dig a little deeper into the unique components of each plan and how they differ, but first, let’s talk about why they’re essential in the first place. Why are a DRP and BCP Important?Businesses face a wide variety of threats that can impede their ability to function. These could result from natural disasters like fires, floods, tornados, earthquakes or hurricanes. There are also many man-made threats, like malware, cyberattacks, ransomware, accidental data deletion or even internal sabotage. Without both a business continuity plan and a disaster recovery plan in place, businesses face the dire consequences of being ill-prepared when disaster strikes. Research shows that half of all businesses that experience a major disaster “never return to the marketplace.” Of businesses that are involved in a major fire, 70 percent “fail within 3 years.” The stakes are especially high for small businesses. According to FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency), 90% of smaller companies fail within one year after a disaster if they’re unable to resume operations within 5 days. Without detailed plans for preparing for such a disaster, businesses are setting themselves up for failure. By focusing on both business continuity and disaster recovery planning, you can ensure your business can withstand these challenges. Alarming Statistics about the Need for Disaster PlanningThe rates of business failure are especially high for businesses that do not have a business continuity plan or disaster recovery plan. Consider some of these alarming business continuity statistics:
How a Business Continuity Plan and Disaster Recovery Plan OverlapIn reality, both plans are referred to generally when describing a business’s disaster preparedness, whether for prevention or response or both. But also, it’s important to remember that a comprehensive business continuity plan will actually have a disaster recovery plan built into it. Your BCP is a master document that should encompass all aspects of a company’s disaster prevention, mitigation and response, including the recovery protocols (whether tech-focused or not). You cannot have an effective business continuity plan without addressing how the business will recover from different kinds of disasters. Confused? Don’t be. Let’s take a closer look at each plan. Business Continuity PlanningA business continuity plan is a broad plan to keep a business up and running in the event of a disaster. It focuses on the business as a whole, but also drills down to very specific scenarios that create risks for operations. With business continuity planning, generally speaking, you’re focusing on the critical operations that the business needs to get up and running again after a disruption in order to conduct regular business. If the plan is followed correctly, businesses should be able to continue to provide services to customers during or immediately after a disaster with minimal disruption. The plan also focuses on the needs of business partners and vendors. A business continuity plan is a written document that lists the business’s essential functions. According to TechTarget, these are things like a list of critical supplies, employee contact information, a list of crucial business functions or copies of important records. Basically, the business continuity plan includes all the necessary information to get the business up and running as soon as possible after a disruptive event. But even that is only one small component of a BCP, as we address below. Disaster Recovery PlanningA disaster recovery plan can be considered a more focused, specific part of a business continuity plan. Depending on who you talk to, a disaster recovery plan is sometimes narrowly focused on a business’s data and information systems. According to Data Center Knowledge, for example, a disaster recovery plan is designed to save “data with the sole purpose of being able to recover it in the event of a disaster.” For this reason, disaster recovery planning is usually focused on the needs of the IT department. Depending on the type of disaster, the plan could involve everything from recovering a small data set to the loss of an entire datacenter. Since most businesses are increasingly reliant on information technology, the disaster recovery plan is an important part of business continuity planning. A disaster recovery plan can also refer to protocols that are outside the realm of IT. For example, the plan could include steps for recovery personnel to seek a secondary business location to resume critical operations. Or, it could include guidance for how to restore communication between emergency staff if primary lines of communication are unavailable. In other words, disaster recovery planning does not always have to be strictly IT-focused, though it often is. If your IT personnel are creating an IT-focused disaster recovery plan, just be sure that all non-IT recovery protocols are included within the larger BCP documentation. What to Include in a Business Continuity PlanYour BCP should serve as the single, multifaceted document for managing all ends of disaster preparedness at your organization:
These are broad categories that need to be defined individually for each possible disaster scenario. To do so, you need to gain a better understanding of the unique risks that pose a threat to your organization and how those events will impact the business in terms of downtime, costs, reputation damage and so on. As such, a typical business continuity plan will usually require the following sections:
What to Include in a Disaster Recovery PlanA disaster recovery plan is essentially the “Response” component of your business continuity plan. It encompasses all the procedures, technologies and objectives necessary for completing a quick recovery after a disaster. This recovery could pertain to lost data, damaged hardware, network outages, application failure or virtually any other point of failure across your operations. Here are some things you’ll want to identify within your disaster recovery plan:
Like your BCP, your disaster recovery plan should also be updated periodically to ensure all the information is still accurate. Also, remember that the information in your DRP should be dictated in part by a thorough business analysis, like the risk assessments and impact analyses from your overall continuity planning. It is indeed important to understand the differences between a business continuity plan and a disaster recovery plan, but perhaps even more important is understanding how these two documents hinge on each other and play a connected role in maintaining continuity. Backup & Disaster RecoveryOne of the best strategies in disaster recovery planning is to keep all of your data backed up on a server at a secondary site. This way, if a disaster occurs at the primary site, a backup of all vital data is available. A good disaster recovery plan will dictate how you manage and access data from the secondary site as quickly as possible. For example, in the case of hybrid-cloud backup systems like the Datto SIRIS, you have several recovery options available to you. If a disaster occurs at the primary site, you can restore data from the cloud or boot the entire backup as a virtual machine. The virtualization method allows for instant access to data and applications while a full recovery is in process. Ultimately, the reliability of your disaster recovery plan is dependent on everything you’ve included in the plan: all the infrastructure, processes, planning and testing. Frequently Asked Questions1) What’s the difference between a business continuity plan and a disaster recovery plan?The main difference is that a disaster recovery plan is more focused on the procedures for recovering from a disaster, especially in regards to IT systems, while a business continuity plan focuses on the bigger picture of preventing all operational disruptions. Disaster recovery planning is typically considered a subset of business continuity planning. 2) Which comes first: business continuity or disaster recovery?Business continuity planning is the foundation of a business’s disaster planning and thus should come before disaster recovery planning. Continuity planning will identify the primary threats to a business using a risk assessment and impact analysis. Those assessments can be used to inform IT disaster recovery planning. 3) What is an example of a business continuity strategy?One example of a business continuity strategy is creating frequent data backups that can be restored in case files are deleted, destroyed or lost. This strategy involves using a dependable business continuity and disaster recovery (BC/DR) system that enables frequent backups and prompt restore methods. 4) What is business continuity and disaster recovery?Business continuity and disaster recovery (or BC/DR) refers to the systems and procedures that help a business continue operating through a disaster. The term is commonly used in reference to data backup and recovery systems, but it can apply to other IT systems as well. Don’t Go without a Plan! Get the Protection You Need.Being prepared for a disaster is one of the most important things a business can do to prevent costly downtime—or permanent closure—when these disruptive incidents occur. Get in touch with our experts at Invenio IT to explore the technology your organization needs for business continuity, data backup and disaster recovery. Request a free demo or contact our specialists at Invenio IT by calling (646) 395-1170 or by emailing . |