Difference Between Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity Plan

Nature is not a fan of consistency as it changes every next second. Making everything around us uncertain and challenging. Natural disasters and the sudden break of a pandemic are a few examples of these challenges. Demanding countries and their organization to plan ways to tackle and keep their businesses alive even in the face of a major crisis. The disaster recovery plan followed by a holistic plan known as a business continuity plan are examples of such policies that were developed to secure the Information Technology(IT) servers of businesses. Making them immune to dramatic natural events.

Here in this article, we will discuss both of these recovery plans and their functional contrast.

Introduction to DR and BC plans.

The disaster recovery plan was first developed in the 1970s while the business continuity plan was developed in the 1980s. Although disaster recovery is used interchangeably with business continuity plans in some places, both are quite different from each other. Disaster recovery is in fact a section of a business continuity plan. While disaster recovery focuses mainly on bringing systems back online after a disaster, business continuity focuses on developing a proactive plan to keep business alive even after the occurrence of a crisis. Thus a disaster recovery plan is reactive in its approach whereas a business continuity plan is proactive. For further details click to see the disaster recovery acronyms explained here.

Distinct aims and objectives of the two plans

DR and BC plans have distinct aims. The aim of IT disaster recovery is to minimize the IT damage caused by the crisis and to recover it as soon as possible. On the other hand, a business continuity plan aims to preserve the financial status and the business reputation by ensuring the active working of the business operations during and after the traumatic event.

Varying domains of DR and BC plan

Furthermore, the domain of disaster recovery is restricted to data protection, prevention of damage, and its active recovery. Contrarily, the domain of business continuity plan is wide encompassing, manpower, partners, and suppliers.

Understanding their Inventories

While talking about the Inventories of the two plans, staff suppliers, vehicles and buildings come under the umbrella of the BC plan while on the other hand, network, servers, equipment, and endpoints come under the DR plan.

Different threats and handling

Another differentiating factor between the two plans is their handling and analysis of threats. Business Continuity plan impacts the analysis of threats to the business operation while for DR plans the threats are mainly those that affect the IT infrastructure.

The Bottom line

Information technology and its wide utility by businesses for effective processing and sharing of information is a fact today. A business cannot imagine growing without having an in-house or externally sourced IT team. Given this profound importance, the security of this business data is essential for the survival and continued operation of a business. Demanding you to IT disaster recovery plan in conjunction with the Business continuity plan.