Business Continuity and Recovery
Plans and Analysis for Business Recovery
No one can predict when a disaster will strike (fire, flood, COVID-19 etc). While some services are outside a business’s control, an IT Business Continuity Plan ensures that important and critical operations continue to function even during a disaster. The ideal solution would be one where clients aren’t even aware as service carries on regardless.
What is an IT Business Continuity plan?
A good IT Business Continuity Plan is a solution that provides critical services and products to both employees and clients during a crisis to ensure the business stays running. It is a solution that needs to be integrated with in the existing IT infrastructure so that it can be implemented quickly and easily. As such, it is an integral part of the existing design of the IT infrastructure, rather than a hastily thought of add-on.
A successful recovery Plan will include:
- Business Impact & Risk Analysis. Understanding your businesses critical services and products,
with IT in mind, will guide you to building a successful solution. - Identifying and maintaining resources required to initiate and maintain business continuity.
- Designs for delivering an uninterrupted service.
- Testing and training to detect any weak links or possible failings.
- Governance and documentation.
- Plans for both long, and short, term solutions
Some points about an IT Business Continuity Plan
I have a Cloud backup, isn’t that enough? – No. While having data readily available is a key component of business continuity, there is more involved than just access to data (products/services).
I have a DR (Disaster Recovery) Plan, isn’t that the same? – No. A DR Plan is all about restoring the infrastructure, it’s one part of a complete Business Continuity Plan.
Disaster Recovery
A disaster recovery plan is a structured and documented approach that describes how a business can recover after a disaster (Flood, fire, theft, data loss). A DR plan is part of the Business Continuity Plan and aims to help a company recover after a disaster.
In the world of IT, this would include restoring servers from backups, re-creating local area networks and restoring communications.
Like a business continuity plan, a DR plan requires a business impact and risk assessment to establish the critical areas that need to be addressed. The way a business can quickly respond to incidents can reduce downtime, reputation and financial damage.