Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery are entirely different strategies despite their similarities. Business Continuity is to ensure that the business continues executing critical business processes. Disaster Recovery outlines the processes and procedures to restore vital technology to execute those business processes.

93% of companies without Disaster Recovery who suffer a major data disaster are out of business within one year. Despite this statistic, the IT Disaster Recovery Plan is a crucial but often overlooked document in a business.

This article serves as an introduction to the process of documenting such a plan.

In Part 13 of our Business Continuity Planning series, we discussed how to design a business recovery strategy. This article will cover the final stages of building a BCP. You will learn:

• how to conduct awareness workshops

• how to test your recovery strategy

• how to document your BCP how to operationalize your BCP

In Part 12 of our Business Continuity Planning series, we discussed the key inputs you need to define your organization’s recovery strategy, as well as the advantages of having a secondary physical location that can be used as a recovery site. In this article, we will discuss the components of the recovery strategy that are necessary to document and operationalize.

In Part 11 of our Business Continuity Planning series, we discussed some of the key aspects of building a recovery strategy, such as disaster categorization and classification. In this article, we will discuss what you should consider when designing your recovery strategy.

A well executed recovery strategy could mean the difference between your organization bouncing back after a disaster or never recovering. While there are countless potential disasters you can face, if you can categorize them into two or three simple groups and assess the severity of the risks, you will find it much easier to respond quickly and effectively when something does happen.