Introduction
Looking at the differences of business continuity vs disaster recovery has many businesses going in circles. In fact, some believe business continuity and disaster recovery can be used interchangeably.
However, in reality, they are two very different aspects of business, and you can uniquely benefit from both in a number of ways.
The importance of business continuity planning and disaster recovery
What is disaster recovery?
Disaster recovery explicitly refers to how your data, servers and applications are restored right after a damaging event – for example, one where a server has been compromised in some way or the other, such as following a cyber attack or data leak.
Many businesses shy away from disaster recovery as they see it as a very expensive solution. But the truth is when you use a cloud-based disaster recovery solution like the Veeam DRBC (disaster recovery and backup) platform, you are investing in a cost-effective way to restore your files quickly, servers and IT infrastructure.
In fact, Veeam’s Instant Recovery feature alone is changing how companies see backup and disaster recovery – by activating the server restoration process within minutes.
Disaster recovery is generally viewed as an ‘expensive insurance’ option by most organisations but Veeam works on a pay-per-use basis only, offering a very cost-effective disaster recovery platform to businesses of all sizes.
What is business continuity?
Business continuity refers to how businesses keep their operations running smoothly during an outage. Organisations that do not have a detailed business continuity plan in place in the event of a disruption – such as a fire, local/nationwide power failure or cyber attack, for example – stand to lose not only customers but their reputation as well, among other things.
Luckily, our risk assessment team is on hand to help you understand how your business may potentially be impacted by disruptions and put an effective plan in place to mitigate them.
Business continuity vs disaster recovery explained
Organisations of all scales and across all sectors can benefit from disaster recovery and business continuity. However, it’s important to keep in mind some key differences:
Business continuity focuses on keeping you operational in the event of a disaster, while disaster recovery focuses on restoring company data access and your IT infrastructure, following a disaster.
Business continuity plans revolve around creating safety measures, such as practising fire drills or stocking up on emergency supplies.
Both business continuity and disaster recovery have different goals – good business continuity is all about limiting operational downtime, while good disaster recovery is all about limiting inefficient and/or abnormal system function as much as possible. So, rather than seeing it as “disaster recovery or business continuity”, businesses should focus more on “disaster recovery and business continuity”, as a combination of both will best prepare you for any unexpected or potentially disastrous events.
In conclusion, we should think more along the lines of business continuity AND disaster recovery, rather than either or.
How Emerge Digital can help
Emerge Digital specialises in providing cost-effective business continuity and disaster recovery solutions, which are tested and implemented on a bespoke basis according to your ongoing needs.
Contact us now to learn more about how both disaster recovery and business continuity can help prepare your business for unforeseen circumstances and enable you to bounce back quickly with little effort.
For more information on the differences between business continuity and disaster recovery, please get in touch with our team of experts today.
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