The Data Analysis For Business Continuity And Disaster Recovery Plan

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.

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

Senior management concern in the development of plan helps in creating a more robust plan where every need is met in a more effective way. In case of any disaster recovery or business continuity plan, main focus is always to find a way through which business operations keep on the track. For this purpose, plan should include methods through which workers would interact with each other and carry out their routine

There are certain misconceptions out there about the need for business continuity planning. It is important to know the reality behind these myths.

Business enterprises depend on information to survive and to ensure business continuity. However, in IT protecting information from disasters is a constant challenge. In spite of having adequate data backup and storage, companies face business disruptions and useful data is lost. Thoughtful planning and collaboration of people at all levels in the organization can help to develop comprehensive disaster recovery and business continuity plans

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.

The significance of each major phase of continuity planning merits attention because each phase contributes to building all four areas of business continuity: disaster recovery, business recovery, business resumption, and contingency planning:

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

The effective contingency plan should only include the high-priority items and it should be as simple as possible. The purpose for the contingency plans is to response quickly when there are changes of an organization’s current strategy. For example, the predefined strategy is based on some assumptions about the economy but the outcome is not what the organization assumed, the contingency plan can support the organization to react promptly. The effective contingency planning includes a seven step process. First, Identify both beneficial and unfavorable events that could possibly derail the strategy. This step includes the development of the formal contingency planning policy statement in order to provide it to relevant stakeholders the authority and guideline that required developing the effective contingency plan. Policy will be published when executive confirms it. To gather the high-level business requirements, define scope and allocating project resources. Second, Specify trigger points and calculate about when contingent events are likely to occur. It involves the Business Impact Analysis (BIA) to identify threat scenarios, prioritize key business processes and critical systems for business continuity. Executive approval on those choices of the critical business functions and the priority to recover during the disaster. Third, Assess the

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).