A backup plan is often included as part of a business continuity plan (bcp).
Did you know that 93% of companies who fail to have a business continuity plan and who suffer a major data disaster are out of business within one year? Additionally, 96% of companies with a trusted disaster and recovery plan were able to survive such attacks and get back to business almost immediately. Show
An effective business continuity plan is a plan that allows for contingencies such as natural disasters, virus attacks, or any loss of access to the critical infrastructure of a business. Business Continuity Planning ProcessA business continuity plan is a set of procedures designed to ensure that an organization continues to operate during times of disaster. The purpose of a business continuity plan is to minimize the impact of disasters on operations. An effective business continuity plan should be developed by senior management and reviewed regularly. It includes detailed plans for each critical function within the company. The steps involved in developing a business continuity plan are:
Disaster Recovery PlanningDisaster recovery planning (DRP) involves creating a plan for recovering an organization’s IT systems and processes in the event of a natural or manmade disaster. DRP is intended to provide a framework for identifying and implementing the necessary actions to recover the organization’s IT infrastructure. There are two types of DRPs:
In addition to these two types, there are three levels of DRP:
An effective disaster recovery plan must address the following issues:
Planning For Business ContinuityBusiness continuity planning is a proactive approach to managing risk. It requires organizations to identify and understand the risks facing them, develop appropriate responses to those risks, and implement those responses. Business continuity planning is not just a matter of having a backup system ready to go; it also means making sure that you have adequate resources available to handle any problems that may arise. Assessing Threats and RisksYour continuity plan needs to include everything that could possibly attack the infrastructure of your business to allow for any event that might negatively impact your general operations. The goal is to prevent IT downtime that would naturally occur from such an attack. The attack can be deliberate or it may be accidental. Intention doesn’t matter but getting the business back in working order is the focus. Secondly, you must have a plan that preserves important data that is central to your business. The data might also include sensitive information that belongs to your clients and customers. Because your credibility is at stake, you must take the time to secure any data that could be used in a negative way and shut down any systems that are vulnerable. Recovery Time ObjectivesRecovery Time Objectives (RTOs) are used to define how long it takes to recover from a major incident. RTOs are typically expressed in hours, days, weeks, months, years, or decades. Recovery time objectives can also be defined by using different metrics such as number of personnel required, equipment needed, number of facilities needed, etc. The following table shows some examples of recovery time objectives for various incidents. Critical Business FunctionsA disaster recovery plan should include all critical business functions such as payroll, human resources, customer service, and finance. The goal is to ensure that these critical business functions continue to operate during a natural disaster or other emergency situation. Benefits Of a Disaster Plan and Recovery StrategiesThe general goal of a disaster or business continuity plan is to improve the level of responsiveness by employees in different situations that might interfere with the daily operations of your business. Like preparing for disasters such as tornadoes, earthquakes, or other events that are unpredictable, a disaster plan or business continuity plan requires all members to be on board to make it work efficiently. Emergency Management PlanNot only should a business have a disaster plan, but they should have the continuity plan outlined succinctly in a place where everyone has access to it. It should be required reading for all executives, employees, and other staff members that work within the facility where the business is operated. Additionally, you should have assigned specific jobs and responsibilities to staff members who will be responsible for various actions in the event of an emergency.
This may take some time, depending on the type of disaster that occurred and the amount of damage or loss you experienced. If you had a building fire, for example, it will take a lot longer to get back into your building to conduct business than if you had a cyber-attack that could be stopped by your IT team. Why Does Your Company Need a BCP?A business continuity plan is sometimes referred to as a disaster recovery plan because it allows for the preservation of critical data and other elements of your business. Having a good contingency plan ensure you that downtime is limited to the minimum amount of time needed to get it back up and running. Protection of data is the other aspect of this. You must make sure that your customers’ data is safe and secure and it usually involves putting it in a remote location or a SkyDrive outside of your location in which the disaster occurred. Below are the main aspects of a continuity plan that you may want to consider when you are planning.
It is important to distinguish between a business continuity plan and a disaster plan. While they both work together in unison, the business continuity is planning how to keep your business going despite the disaster, while the DCP is designed to build back your damaged infrastructure following the disaster. For help in planning your business continuity planning and disaster plans, contact us for more information. We can help you prepare for the unexpected. Best Solutions: ExterNetworks to The RescueIt’s wise to think ahead and we can help. We offer the following services to help you build your unique business continuity plan. IT Managed Services – Managed services is a strategy that we use to streamline your technical operations to save you money while keeping focused on the important aspects of your business operations. Managed Security Services – Our managed security services consider every type of threat to your business that might occur. We also utilize our resources to keep your software up-to-date at all times. This often deters online threats before they come. NOC Support – This service is one of the best things we do to protect you from a disaster before it happens. Our team of certified professional IT experts, engineers, and threat assessment experts will monitor your issues and let you know of any possible threat. We offer routine troubleshooting through proactive network monitoring, as well as round-the-clock protection from outside cyber-attacks, and more. Managed Firewall Services – Our managed firewall services provides a way to deflect possible swarm attacks from outside virus or malware that can infiltrate and knock down your network, causing downtime and loss of revenue. Is backup part of BCP?While backup and recovery are technically two different aspects of a BCP, for most plans they can be considered together because they have the same business and compliance requirements, and the technology to perform both will be the same.
What does a business continuity plan BCP typically include?Plans typically contain a checklist that includes supplies and equipment, data backups and backup site locations. Plans can also identify plan administrators and include contact information for emergency responders, key personnel and backup site providers.
What are the 5 components of business continuity plan?In order to achieve this, every business continuity plan needs to incorporate five key elements.. Risks and potential business impact. ... . Planning an effective response. ... . Roles and responsibilities. ... . Communication. ... . Testing and training.. What are the 3 elements of business continuity?A business continuity plan has three key elements: Resilience, recovery and contingency. An organization can increase resilience by designing critical functions and infrastructures with various disaster possibilities in mind; this can include staffing rotations, data redundancy and maintaining a surplus of capacity.
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