Disaster Recovery vs. Business Continuity

Disaster Recovery (DR) is the process by which you resume business after a disruptive event. The event might be catastrophic- a hurricane, fire or terrorist attack-or something small, like malfunctioning software caused by a computer virus.

Business Continuity
(BC) is a more comprehensive approach to making sure you can keep making money, not only after a catastrophic event but also in the event of smaller disruptions including illness or departure of key staffers, supply chain partner problems or other challenges that businesses face from time to time.

Despite these obvious differences, the two terms have been married under the acronym BC/DR. However, today’s business world demands much more. Prevention, not recovery, is now the order of the day.

Business Continuity
Planning (BCP) is the creation and validation of a practiced  plan for how an organization will recover and restore partially or completely interrupted critical functions within a predetermined time after a disaster or extended disruption. BCP is proactive. Prevention rather than a cure.

Evidence that firms need BC Plans can be found in disaster survival statistics. Fires permanently close 44% of business without a written plan in place. In the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, 150 businesses out of 350 affected failed to survive the event. Conversely, the firms with well-developed and tested BCP manuals affected by the September 11 attacks were back in business within days.

The Business Continuity Experts at Akuwa Solutions Group will partner with your organization in the development of your BCP. The 5 stages in this process are:

• Analysis
• Solution Design
• Implementation
• Testing and Organizational Acceptance
• Maintenance

Having a Business Continuity Plan in place with a properly designed and implemented Virtual Server Environment will give you the ability to resume business in a fraction of the time once needed.