Disaster Recovery: One Element Of Business Continuity Planning

Chris Furey, CEO of Savvy Networks, a Web hosting provider and co-location service provider based in Tarrytown, N.Y., said that when clients request a disaster recovery plan, his company informs them that what they really need is a business continuity plan. "We prefer to be proactive rather than reactive," Furey said.

\

"We ask [customers if their employees would be able to work from home or if they had fall-over lines to take incoming calls [if a company shutdown occurred. Then they start to understand what is needed." -- Chris Furey, CEO, Savvy Networks

Disaster recovery focuses primarily on a company's computer systems and technology that supports and manages its intellectual capital. Business continuity, however, covers an organization's entire structure,from telecommunications and staffing to office space and furnishings.

"Business continuity planning is a longer, more in-depth process that is more costly than just disaster recovery planning," said Chris Leach, national director of technology risk management at Chicago-based consulting firm Grant Thornton. "Businesses with business continuity plans that were located in the World Trade Center were back in operation and still viable four days after the [Sept. 11 terrorist attacks."

When devising a business continuity plan, Grant Thornton asks the client to prioritize key operations and ensure that the processes and procedures are properly in place and fully documented.

id
unit-1659132512259
type
Sponsored post

"Without properly prioritizing mission-critical applications and operations, a company will be throwing money away, taking inappropriate actions or trying to do everything at once," Leach said.

A solid business continuity plan also requires an ongoing process of review and reassessment to gauge its effectiveness, according to Chuck Ross, CTO of EYT (formerly Ernst and Young Technologies), Chantilly, Va.

"Too much attention is paid to the technical side of the equation." -- Chuck Ross, CTO of EYT

"Too much attention is paid to the technical side of the equation, and not enough attention is paid to the proper planning and testing to ensure that the technology implemented for business continuity is used properly," Ross said.

Business continuity can be viewed as a continuum, with everyday system errors, breakdowns and outages at one end and catastrophic events requiring a disaster recovery plan at the other end, Ross said. "Sometimes all it takes is an upgrade to a system that was not completed properly, and you have a disaster to recover from," he noted.

EYT advises clients that a business continuity scheme include a four-step cycle that must be performed constantly: assess, analyze, plan and practice.

"In the first two steps, the business applications must be assessed based on functionality and then analyzed to determine what the best architecture is for these applications and how to implement the architecture," Ross said. "The next two steps involve planning the implementation of the architecture with your partners and service providers and then practicing the plan to ensure that there are no holes in the process." There should be at least two practice phases each year, he added.

For IT solution providers, it's crucial to get a sense of the time period in which a customer needs to return to normal business conditions following a disruption or disaster, according to Ross.

"Solution providers must ask how long the client can afford to be down, and then they have to ask how quickly the client [needs to recover," he said.

To help clients better understand the scope of a business continuity plan vs. just a disaster recovery solution, Savvy Networks' Furey asks them to visualize walking out of their office and then hearing a steel gate slam down around it,sealing off all employees from company operations for an unknown amount of time.

"As the beads of sweat begin to form, we ask them if their employees would be able to work from home or if they had fall-over lines to take incoming calls," he said. "Then they start to understand what is needed."