Understanding the Difference Between Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Plans
It is common for us to come across clients and potential clients that may not understand the difference between a business continuity plan (BCP) and a disaster recovery plan (DRP) or why they are critical for data protection and avoiding business operations interruptions. It is important to understand they are two separate strategies and plans.
A business continuity plan when put in place helps keep a business running, even during a crisis. There are many threats to a business that can cause a disruptive situation such as power outage, physical disruption, network outage, or a cyberattack. It can also be called a crisis response playbook, as it ensures a business is resistant to complete failure if any of these occur.
Crucial elements of a business continuity plan include:
- Detailed audit of the various risks, threats, and problems that could affect business operations
- Detailed list of all mission-critical business functions and processes that cannot be interrupted or they will cause an all-out stoppage.
- Decision making authority for declaring a disaster and an identified response team
- Emergency communication plan so all are informed if critical systems are unavailable, and operations are shutdown.
The disaster recovery plan focuses on restoring business operations to a normal state, which varies from the business continuity plan that focuses on keeping the core business up and running. The disaster recovery plan is strategy for quickly restoring systems and data after a catastrophic event has occurred within your business.
Every disaster recovery plan should include:
- List of necessary hardware and software applications considered critical to operations
- Recovery time objective
- Data loss tolerance/recovery point objective
- Compliance regulations
- Post-disaster action plan
Does your organization have both a disaster recovery and business continuity plan in place? If you do not or are interested in having an outside expert evaluate your plans to ensure you are set up for success, let 2W Tech help. 2W Tech is a technology solutions and managed services provider specializing in solutions for the manufacturing industry. Let our team of expert IT Consultants guide your business through your disaster recovery and business continuity journey.
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