Business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) is a set of processes and techniques used to help an organization recover from a disaster and continue or resume routine business operations.
BCDR is a somewhat broad term, but also an important modality that combines the roles and functions of IT and business in the aftermath of a disaster.
Generally, a business continuity plan helps an organization respond to business disruptions in order to carry on with “business as usual.”
A business continuity plan should address all aspects of an organization, such as:
- Employees
- Communication channel
- IT infrastructure
- Stakeholders
- Offices
Disasters do occur, and take the form of everything from tornadoes and hurricanes to serious data breaches. The plan must consist of very specific actions as well as who is responsible for what when disaster strikes.
Most analysts consider disaster recovery as part of a business continuity plan. The disaster recovery part focuses more on restoration of key IT applications and data following a catastrophe. There’s also an emphasis on minimizing downtime and assuring that important support systems are operating quickly and correctly.
There are several key factors to consider when creating a BCDR plan. While employee and customer safety should be your top concern, there are also other areas of focus that are especially important, such as figuring out the duration your business can last without its tools, assets, operating locations, and other elements crucial to operations.
Another key is coming to terms with possible outcomes if you’re denied access to facilities, servers, customer records, or other needs. This includes understanding the length of time you can operate without telephone service, electricity, or temporary electricity if running only on generators, water, and other utilities.
Want to learn more? Tonex offers Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Training, a 2-day course that helps participants understand a variety of topics in disaster recovery and business continuity such as: introduction to disaster recovery, concept of disasters, introduction to business continuity, disaster recovery processing plans, risk management techniques, facility protection during disaster recovery period, data/system recovery, incident response and public service effect in disaster recovery plan.
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