CMGT245
Differences between a Disaster Recovery Plan and a Business Continuity Plan
A Disaster Recovery Plan and a Business Continuity plan are very similar yet they also hold unique properties to themselves. Each one works with the other to keep a business working in case of an emergency. A Disaster Recovery Plan is a document of standard operating procedures and personnel are needed to execute those procedures within the IT department. It also includes specific systems that need to be recovered for critical business operations.
A Business Continuity Plan tells of what systems processes and personnel that needed to be protected in case of an emergency. It lists them according to …show more content…
The planning group determines which personnel would be needed to bring key systems back online. Risk assessments and audits should be documented within the disaster recovery plan to avoid mistakes and errors that may occur. Establishing priorities for applications and networks determines which systems need to be brought up first and in which order they should be. Recovery strategies will limit panic if and when the system goes down. Inventory and documentation should be updated monthly to ensure no new system is missing from the disaster recovery plan and keep its location known to the personnel for ease of access. Verification criteria is what you would use to determine if the systems were indeed brought back online as intended, and ensures accuracy of the …show more content…
A walk-through is where key units within a business get together to accurately detail the steps needed in a plan and look for mistakes or items that may be missing. Simulations are just as it sounds. Those key units meet again to perform a simulation of the emergency to act out the steps they would take if a true emergency has happened as accurately as possible. Checklists are a passive type of test for a disaster recovery plan. The key departments check off what they are responsible for in case of an emergency and they also check this list for mistakes or omissions. Parallel testing is when you run a backup system at the same time as a live system. An example of this would be running a generator to maintain power for a datacenter at the same time power is still being provided by the cities power grid. This will show the stability of the generator and length of time it can remain on that power source. Full Interruption is also known as a true/false test. A live test occurs that stops production systems to see if the backup system take affect and how they key units react the planned outage. This can show areas of failure that can be worked on incase a true disaster were to