Close
  • About
  • IT Solutions
  • Industries
  • Cybersecurity
  • Resources
  • News
  • Careers
  • Refer Us
  • Payment Portal
  • Home
Get Support
Linkedin
Facebook-square
Twitter

ECS + MyIT Logo
  • About
  • IT Solutions
      Outsourced IT icon

      Outsourced IT

      Hybrid IT icon

      Hybrid/Co-IT

      Phones icon

      VOIP Phones

      Cloud icon

      Cloud & Network Equipment

      Consulting & Strategy

      Audits & Assessments

  • Industries
      heartbeat icon

      Compliance

      Auto dealership icon

      Auto Dealerships

      Professional IT Services hand icon

      Professional Services

      SMBs icon

      Small Businesses

      Government building icon

      Government

      Education icon

      Education

      Construction icon

      Construction

      Non-Profit organization icon

      Non-Profit

  • Cybersecurity
  • Resources
Contact Us
ECS + MyIT Logo
  • About
  • IT Solutions
      Outsourced IT icon

      Outsourced IT

      Hybrid IT icon

      Hybrid/Co-IT

      Phones icon

      VOIP Phones

      Cloud icon

      Cloud & Network Equipment

      Consulting & Strategy

      Audits & Assessments

  • Industries
      heartbeat icon

      Compliance

      Auto dealership icon

      Auto Dealerships

      Professional IT Services hand icon

      Professional Services

      SMBs icon

      Small Businesses

      Government building icon

      Government

      Education icon

      Education

      Construction icon

      Construction

      Non-Profit organization icon

      Non-Profit

  • Cybersecurity
  • Resources
Contact Us
DR & Data Protection

Business Continuity vs Disaster Recovery vs High Availability – What’s the Difference?

By Guest Post 

Most business professionals, including many in IT, interchange and confuse the meanings of business continuity, disaster recovery, and high availability. Each term has a unique meaning, although their individual functions do coexist with each other.

Planning is vital because 43% of companies with a major data loss do not reopen, and 51% close within two years. That means only 6% of companies with a major data loss survive long term! [Source IBM] Planning is everything!

Keep in mind, disasters include more than just natural disasters like hurricanes, flooding, and snow storms. Businesses must also plan for localized disasters to just their building such as a lightning strike, power outage, and water leak, as well as server crashes and cyber-attacks.

Regardless of what you call it, the importance is “if we lost this business location how would we recommence our business?” 

Defining the Business Terms

  • Business Continuity – The processes and procedures to ensure mission-critical services can operate with as little of a disruption as possible during a disaster. This management plan should include essential business functions including production, customer support, accounting, and sales. Plans must include how the company will re-establish all services to their normal, fully functional level.
  • Disaster Recovery – The storage, replication, and recovery of data in the event of a disaster.
  • High Availability – The systems or components in place to provide a relative 100% operational uptime.

Dissecting the Differences in Layman’s Terms

Disaster Recovery is a subset of Business Continuity and pertains to IT’s plan for just the data. The Business Continuity plan is the overall strategy that covers the entire company.  Think of it like this, Disaster Recovery is data-centric and Business Continuity is business-centric. High Availability requires infrastructure to be in place to ensure minimal interruption, which is also a subset of the Business Continuity plan.

For example, a Business Continuity plan for a hurricane evacuation could be for all employees to report to a satellite office in Baton Rouge, LA with their laptops, and the Disaster Recovery plan states how the employees will then access the data to do their jobs (production, billing, support, sales, etc.) at the temporary location. High Availability is the procedure and components for the data stored on the local server to immediately switch to a back-up facility out of the hurricane’s path.

First and foremost, even with a hurricane bearing down on a company, the company can stay operational with minimal downtime. Secondly, if the hurricane does impact the main office, the Business Continuity plan will address doing work after the disaster. The Disaster Recovery plan will only address how to access the data during the disaster and how to bring it back online afterwards (as well as backing up that data in both locations).

As I mentioned, you can’t just prepare for hurricanes. What does your company do during a 4-hour power outage or if a disgruntled employee steals your server? Yes, these things happen and if you’re not prepared for them, your company will lose more money than if a plan were in place. Even worse, the company may not rebound from a disaster. FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) states 40% of businesses do not reopen following a disaster. [Source: FEMA]

bigstock-Hand-Press-Cloud-Backup-Button-102346397-sm.jpg

Key Metrics to Know

When developing your Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery plans, it is important to understand these key metrics:

  • RPO (Recovery Point Objective) – The point in time where you can recover your data from.
    • For example, if you back up your data nightly, then your recovery point is 2 am last night. If your server crashes at noon, then you lose all the data created from 2 am to the time the data is restored [which is your RTO below].
      Larger companies usually have more frequent RPOs such as within two hours, so they do not lose hundreds of hours of manpower from a server crash.
  • RTO (Recovery Time Objective) – How long it takes to recover your data including your core application, email, and backups. RTO usually refers to essential data, as some data such as archives may not be accessible immediately.
    • For example, your IT support team can get your data restored from the backup within 4 hours following a server crash.
  • Availability – The agreed-upon level of uptime for a service or product, known as a Service Level Agreement (SLA).
    • For example, a 99.999% uptime (known as five nines) means you accept being down for 25.9 seconds a month.
      The number of 9s behind the decimal point truly does matter because 99.0% uptime means 3.65 days of downtime, compared to 99.99999% uptime is just 3.15 seconds a year!

With each of these metrics, the higher the availability, faster RTO, and the more recent RPO, the higher the cost. A good IT firm will help you determine the ROI (Return On Investment) of your Disaster Recovery plan and advise you on your company’s Business Continuity plan. Yes, your IT support team should understand the big picture of your company’s operations during a disaster, and not just focus on the data aspect.


Data Protection

Related Articles


DR & Data Protection
3 Types of Disasters That Can Destroy Your Business
Cybersecurity
What is a DDoS attack and why should you care?
DR & Data Protection
3 Places to Backup Your Company’s Data

Leave A Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

*

11 Steps You Legally Must Do to Protect ePHI & PHI
Previous Article
Nurse showing patient test result
12 HIPAA Mistakes Your Medical Practice is Making (and How to Fix Them)
Next Article
  • Categories

    • Blog
    • Business & Technology
    • Cloud Technology
    • Cybersecurity
    • DR & Data Protection
    • Industry-Specific Technologies
    • IT Compliance
    • News and Events


Explore

About Us
IT Solutions
Industries
Get Help
Contact

Disclaimer

Privacy Policy
Terms of Use
Master Client Agreement

Locations

New Orleans
6620 Riverside Drive, Suite 200
Metairie, LA 70003
504-888-6948

Shreveport
347 W. Bert Kouns Industrial Loop
Shreveport, LA 71106
318-219-3427

ECS + MyIT Logo
Linkedin
Facebook-square
Twitter
© 2020 My IT. All Rights Reserved.
  • About
  • IT Solutions
    ▼
    • Outsourced IT
    • Hybrid/Co-IT
    • VOIP Phones
    • Cloud & Network Equipment
  • Industries
    ▼
    • Compliance
    • Auto Dealerships
    • Professional Services
    • Small Businesses
    • Government
    • Education
    • Construction
    • Non-Profit
  • Cybersecurity
  • Resources
  • Contact Us
  • Get Support
  • News
  • Careers
  • Payment Portal