Chapter 11

Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Planning

In This Chapter

Understanding how disasters can disrupt business operations

Discovering how business continuity and disaster recovery differ but work together

Creating business continuity and disaster recovery plans

Defining Business Impact Assessment

Establishing objectives for recovery time and recovery point

Defining recovery plan development

Developing and implementing the plan

Testing your recovery plan

Using your plan for competitive advantage

Business Continuity Planning (BCP) and Disaster Recovery Planning (DRP) work hand in hand to provide an organization with the means to continue and recover business operations when a disaster strikes. BCP and DRP are intensive and highly detailed planning initiatives, each one resulting in important-looking three-ring binders filled with business continuation and recovery procedures that every participant can put on his or her bookshelf.

Business Continuity Planning and Disaster Recovery Planning exist for one reason: Bad things happen. Organizations that want to survive a disastrous event need to make formal and extensive plans — contingency plans to keep the business running and recovery plans to return operations to normal.

Keeping a business operating during a disaster can be like juggling with one arm tied behind your back (we first thought of plate-spinning and one-armed paper hangers, but most of our readers are probably too young to understand these). You’d better plan in advance how you’re going to do it, and practice! It could happen at night, you know (one-handed juggling in the dark is a lot harder).