Business Continuity Plan Vs Disaster Recovery Plan
Understanding Business Continuity and Disaster Recover
Assuring business continuity requires careful planning. The plan must address all aspects of the business, and one of the most important involves Information Technology. Businesses today run on data. Without a solid business continuity strategy and a disaster recovery plan for IT, the organization risks losing access to data or, worse yet, losing valuable data.
Let’s understand what is business continuity plan (BCP):
A business continuity plan (BCP) is a document that outlines how a business will respond to unexpected events and continue to operate. The goal of a BCP is to help a business:
A BCP should cover a wide range of potential disruptions, such as:
A BCP should include clear policies, recovery strategies, and contingency plans. It should also outline roles and responsibilities and include contact information for emergency responders and key personnel. A BCP can help a business maintain its reputation, save time and money, and respond quickly to interruptions. It can also be a legal requirement for some organizations.
What follows is a summary of seven steps that have proven to be useful when creating and enhancing BC plans.
Step #1: Prepare to Plan – This step mostly involves gathering pertinent information
about key personnel, customers, suppliers, facilities, utilities, security provisions, records,
operating procedures and processes, service and licensing agreements, applicable privacy
regulations, etc. If the business depends on it for anything critical to operations, it should
be included.
Step #2: Establish Plan Objectives – The BC plan must support the organization’s core
mission, and that requires establishing a set of objectives based on an assessment of
possible disruptions. Of particular interest to IT are the recovery time and recovery point
objectives, as well as the budget available before, during and after a disruption.
Step #3: Identify and Prioritize Potential Threats and Impacts – While it is not possible
to foresee every way business might someday be disrupted, there are likely threats based
on the organization’s locations and circumstances. Every facility could lose power, but only
some might experience a tornado, hurricane or earthquake. Use probabilities to determine priorities and estimate the potential duration of every threat.
Step #4: Develop Mitigation and Business Continuity Strategies – This is the core of
the BC plan, and should include ways to minimize business impacts before, during and
after recovering from a disruption. For IT, the mission-criticality of each application will be
used to determine its priority in the DR plan. For all departments, the ability to maintain
communications will be key, especially in the event some aspect of the plan fails and a
contingency is urgently needed.
Step #5: Identify Teams and Tasks – This step could be included in Step #4, but is kept
separate here to emphasize its importance. After all, it is people who will implement the
BC plan and people who will take action to compensate for any of the plan’s deficiencies,
such as critical tasks not included in a checklist. This step should also establish a line
of succession with alternate members or teams identified should the primary ones be
unavailable.
Step #6: Test the Plan – The best way to uncover holes in the plan and prepare teams for
implementing it is to test it—thoroughly and regularly—by simulating business disruptions
caused by the threats identified. Scheduled power outages or major upgrades can serve as
ideal opportunities to conduct these tests, but some should also occur unannounced.
Step #7: Maintain/Enhance the Plan – This step is ongoing and serves as the feedback
loop for adjusting, updating, enhancing and otherwise maintaining the plan based on
lessons learned during the tests and actual disruptions. Anything new, such as a new
facility, application or service, should also go through the planning process separately or as
part of this ongoing step.
Let’s now understand Disaster Recovery Planning (DRP):
A disaster recovery plan (DRP) is a structured process that outlines how to restore a business's critical data, IT systems, and operations after a disruption. A DRP can help ensure business continuity by minimizing downtime and protecting sensitive asset.
A DRP typically includes the following components:
The hardware and software used to maintain and protect the system, and to restore functionality after a disaster
Critical data and workloads are securely backed up and replicated to a secondary location
Disaster recovery sites can be used to recover data from the most recent backup or a previous point in time
The people involved in the disaster recovery process
A DRP is developed by following these steps:
A DRP is different from business continuity, which focuses on keeping a business operational during a disaster.
Understanding Business Continuity and Disaster Recover options for SQL Server.
Business Continuity Planning (BCP) vs. Disaster Recovery Planning (DRP) for SQL Server
While both BCP and DRP are crucial for ensuring business resilience, they have distinct
focuses and objectives, especially when applied to SQL Server:
Business Continuity Planning (BCP)
● Focus: Maintaining critical business functions during and after a disruptive event.
● Scope: Broader than DRP, encompassing all aspects of the business, including IT
systems.
● SQL Server Considerations:
○ Identifying critical SQL Server applications and databases.
○ Implementing strategies to ensure minimal downtime for these applications.
○ Developing contingency plans for data backup, replication, and failover.
○ Establishing procedures for remote access to SQL Server instances.
○ Planning for alternative data centers or cloud-based solutions.
Disaster Recovery Planning (DRP)
● Focus: Restoring IT systems, including SQL Server, to their operational state after a
disruptive event.
● Scope: Primarily focused on IT infrastructure and data recovery.
● SQL Server Considerations:
○ Creating detailed recovery procedures for SQL Server databases.
○ Implementing regular backups and testing the restoration process.
○ Configuring log shipping or database mirroring for high availability.
○ Planning for failover to a standby SQL Server instance.
○ Establishing procedures for data recovery and system restoration.
Key Differences:
Interconnectedness:
While BCP and DRP are distinct, they are interconnected. A robust DRP is a critical component
of a comprehensive BCP. By effectively combining both, organizations can minimize the impact
of disruptive events on their SQL Server environments and ensure business continuity.
Additional Considerations:
● Regular Testing: Both BCP and DRP should be tested regularly to identify weaknesses
and refine procedures.
● Documentation: Clear and concise documentation is essential for both plans.
● Training: Employees should be trained on their roles and responsibilities in both plans.
● Communication: Effective communication channels should be established to facilitate coordination during a crisis.
By carefully considering these factors, organizations can develop robust BCP and DRP
strategies that protect their SQL Server environments and ensure business continuity.