Business Continuity And Disaster Recovery Plan

4. What is the main difference between a Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) and a Business Continuity Plan

Presentation regarding the university’s Disaster Recovery Plan/Enterprise Continuity Plan including: basic structures; roles within the DRP/ECP plan; areas within a company if addressed improve resilience to catastrophic events, and an employee awareness campaign.

Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery (BCDR or BC/DR) are closely related practices that describe an organization's preparation for unforeseen risks to continued operations. The trend of combining business continuity and disaster recovery into a single term has resulted from a growing recognition that both business executives and technology executives need to be collaborating closely instead of developing plans in isolation.

These chapters discuss the recovery strategies that the business would need to restore vital functions to an acceptable level following a disastrous event. Without these plans or strategies, a business could suffer tremendous losses such as market share, competitive advantage, and valuable customers. Having the CEAS program is one way that an organization attempts to remedy this situation. It is very important that CEAS is incorporated in the disaster recovery plan of all business entity. Pre-selected employees that would need access to the facility, and processes that would need to be up and running will go a long way in preserving a company’s data, reputation, and financial resources, and competitive

First, Incident Response (IR) plan “is a detailed set of processes and procedures that anticipate, detect, and mitigate the effects of an unexpected event that might compromise information resources and assets.” (Whitman, 2013, p. 85). Consequently, Incident response planning (IRP) is the planning for an incident, which occurs when an attack affects information systems causing disruptions. On the other hand, Disaster Recovery (DR) plan “entails the preparation for and recovery from a disaster, whether natural or human-made.” (Whitman, 2013, p. 97). For instance, events categorized as disasters include fire, flood, storm or earthquake. Thus, the differences between an Incident Response (IR) plan and a Disaster Recovery (DR)

Phase 3 - Maintain the plan. The best plan is only as effective as it is current. Every tactic of business resumption and recovery must be kept up to date and tested regularly.

In the event of a major disaster it is critical for Phoenix to identify the resources necessary to meet the needs of displaced workers, injured personnel, address related family and community needs. Phoenix will maintain command control elements in execution of this business continuity plan and ensure effective follow-through. The assigned leadership will direct all internal and external communications that comes from the organization.

Disasters have become an inevitable part of businesses and organizations as well. They not only have a major effect on business and organizational continuity; they also result to an overhaul in organizational operational mechanisms (Awasthy, 2009). It is for this reason that many organizations and business resort to preparing business continuity plans and disaster recovery plans that will facilitate better disaster management in future. Effective disaster recovery plans are important to every business and organization (Thejendra, 2008).

As a consultant brought into an organization concerned about business continuity I would recommend to first perform a Risk Assessment Analysis and/or Business Impact Analysis (BIA). Conducting a business impact analysis will allow an organization to know the system or application’s downtime tolerance. The analysis will identify all systems and applications that can experience little to no downtime. Conducting risk assessment analysis will allow the organization to identify all the risks at the beginning and during the life of the organization, and grade the risks in terms of likelihood of occurring and seriousness of impact on the organization. Either analysis is an excellent tool and will result in the beginning creations of disaster recovery and business continuity planning. If using the BIA method a good first step is identifying the business’ most crucial systems and processes to assess what effect the outages will have on the business. All systems or applications should have a back-up location offsite to ensure business continuity. The higher the impact the more money a company should spend in order to quickly gain restoration of their business.

Owning a business can have many stressors day to day. When starting a business there is a lot of planning and preparation involved. Many small businesses are owners who have put their own money into the business and look at it as an investment. Unfortunately with all the planning that goes into starting a business, one thing is often over looked. Most of the time the “what ifs”, are not part of the planning stage. One reason for this is that people do not like to think of the bad things that could or may happen. So with all the time and planning put into starting a business why not put some extra thought into a plan B if a disaster strikes? This plan B could be a business continuity plan or a disaster recovery plan. Business continuity plans are an essential part of the modern day business. There are so many potential disasters for small businesses that could seize the production or even close the business down for good. A recent study from Gartner Inc., found that “90% of companies that experience data loss go out of business within two years. It also found that 80% of company owners have not thought about how they would keep their businesses up and running if a data disaster occurs.” According to the Association of Records Managers and Administrators, “about 60 percent of businesses that experience a major disaster such as a fire close

Whether you operate a small business or a large corporation, you strive to remain competitive. It 's vital to retain current customers while increasing your customer base and there 's no better test of your capability to do so than right after an adverse event. Because reestablishing information technology is critical for most organizations, many disaster recovery answers are obtainable and you able to rely on IT to implement those answers. However what about the rest of your business functions? Your organization 's future depends on your people and processes. Having the capabilities to handle any incident successfully, can have a positive effect on your organization 's reputation and it can increase customer self-assurance. Analyzing your organization’s most important information, that is data that directly leads to

The team prioritized investments for disaster recovery initiatives, and in conjunction with business unit leaders, designed a tiered model highlighting recovery priorities. These priorities were validated with IT infrastructure leaders to help ensure alignment. As failover

An important component of the preparedness program is the crisis communications plan. A business must be able to respond promptly, accurately and confidently during an emergency in the hours and days that follow. Many different audiences must be reached with information specific to their interests and needs. The image of the business can be positively or negatively impacted by public perceptions of the handling of the incident ("Crisis Communications Plan", 2015).

Contingency planners are now asserting that contingency planning is a value-added component that can be a competitive advantage in the marketplace as well a means of helping organizations save money. Processes that are deeply analyzed in terms of continuity will usually be more secure, and new ways of working may emerge to help streamline operations. Contingency planning can be useful when forging alliances with external organizations or during acquisition phases. Contingency planning should be part of an organization’s quality cycle as well. “Business continuity and disaster recovery have gained somewhat in the eyes of top corporate management since the start of the 1990s. As the industry has slowly evolved from what could almost have been called a ‘black art’ to something starting to resemble a disciplined science, basic business principles have begun to become increasingly relevant” (Rothstein, 2003, p. 1).

Business continuity and disaster recovery are not new concepts to organizations (Snedaker, 2007), BCP and DRP are most need for any organization but the act of consciously planning and getting ready for potential issues certainly has been underscored by disastrous occasions in the past decade including quakes, tornados, and terrorist assaults.