Business Continuity Planning
1.0 Introduction
Successful firms are usually optimistic, somewhat averse to dwelling on the more unpleasant aspects of business. But the unexpected can happen to any organization, at any time. While organisations cannot control the unexpected, but they can control on how they respond. In the post 9/11 world, Business continuity planning is now a vital part of corporate security planning, as business must keep functioning in midst of any disruptive events, business continuity and disaster recovery can mean either life or death for a firm especially when their dependence on IT is significant. For an organization that uses IT extensively for its operations, not just recording of transactions, the non-availability
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Business continuity requires availability of computing, application services, physical network access and network services, as well as user/ client access to this infrastructure. Maintaining continuity operations and services, including systems such as Web servers, email, critical database and so forth, requires specific technology. This technology and infrastructure can include virtualization, clustering/failover/failback, server hardware, network and network services, remote datacentre facilities, replication services and redundant shared storage.
Depending upon the type of event, continuity of a given application is achieved by falling over its services and user/client access locally within the same datacentre or to a remote, physically disparate datacentre. With business continuity, the failover of a service is measured in seconds or less. Backup technologies, including those that rely on disk as a backup target, can’t provide this level of continuity of services. Backups, in order to be used a restoration process and are typically used for disaster recovery purposes.
3.0 Disaster Recovery
Disaster recovery is an activity of recovering IT systems following of complete or partial loss of a site due to a natural disaster or security event. Depending on the extent of disaster, DR can be achieved by restoring systems at an alternative site or within the same site using alternative equipment. DR requires extensive manual methods to bring IT
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.
Good Business Continuity Planning starts with being proactive. That means taking concrete steps to plan for an incident much before it actually strikes. There is no one single approach that fits for all types of incidents as no two emergencies are identical. Much of business continuity planning varies based on the size of the company, company’s line of business, and the locations of the company, customers and suppliers.
The business continuity & disaster recovery is written into the policy to ensure each department knows and has a plan in case of an unexpected event such as a fire, vandalism, and natural disaster that would disrupt normal business. This part of the plan also states that data administrators are the ones responsible to implement procedures for critical backup of data and how long the recovery time would be which is set by the data stewards and other stockholders.
Due in Week Three: For your selected scenario, describe the key elements of the Disaster Recovery Plan to be used in case of a disaster and the plan for testing the DRP.
A BCP should cover all of the things that could cease regular business operation. Once that has been establish, then we will need to determine what is required for continue operation during a disaster. Then who are the key personnel and what their job will be in support of the continue operation. Identify the key equipment, storage data area and the secondary location at least 30-50 miles away from your primary position.
MAGALHAES, R. (2005, MAY). THE BUSINESS CONTINUITY PLAN RECOVERY DOCUMENT. RETRIEVED ON FEBRUARY 23, 2007, FROM
There are certain misconceptions out there about the need for business continuity planning. It is important to know the reality behind these myths.
The success and effectiveness of a Business Continuity Plan depends on how the scope is defined. Operational procedures and processes may make this
Particularly, after a crisis occurs getting the organization back up and operational again is critical. Business continuity refers to the ability of the company to recommence or continue business activities after a crisis happens. Furthermore, maintaining the important business functions in the midst of a crisis and after the crisis is business continuity (Crandall, Parnell & Spillan, 2013). It is crucial to have a business continuity plan so the organization has a plan to get operations back up; down time is a loss of money, which coupled with the costs of the crisis cuts even deeper into the organizations profits. When our facility experienced the tragic death of an employee, we shut down the day of the accident, however,
In this day and age, a business continuity plan is essential to an organizations risk management. A large organization like Sunshine Machine Works understand that time is critical when it comes to natural disasters or man made interruptions to their network systems. When a system is offline for excessive amounts of time, could mean a loss to the organization. That’s why having an effective business continuity plan is vital to keeping operations for being disturbed during a time of crisis whether it is an attack or natural disaster that could potentially affect Sunshine Machine Works operations, data and networks.
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).
Disaster Recovery Planning is the critical factor that can prevent headaches or nightmares experienced by an organization in times of disaster. Having a disaster recovery plan marks the difference between organizations that can successfully manage crises with minimal cost, effort and with maximum speed, and those organizations that cannot. By having back-up plans, not only for equipment and network recovery, but also detailed disaster recovery plans that precisely outline what steps each person involved in recovery efforts should undertake, an organization can improve their recovery time and minimize the disrupted time for their normal business functions. Thus it is essential that disaster recovery plans are carefully laid
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
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).
If the worst-case state of affairs takes place, then there need to be a backup plan that restores the gadget to its preceding level to minimize the effect to the business enterprise’s functionality. Research has proven that forty three% of companies that have any backup in location never reopen, and that a catastrophe stage occasion can damage the machine and cost 25% of the sales. Having a sturdy backup plan in region allows us avoid going through such effects. There are numerous again up strategies that can act as a backup plan for disaster get better. Some of the examples are Cloud again up, reflected servers, Tape backups, image backup, and many others.