Importance of Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Planning

The importance of business continuity and disaster recovery planning cannot be overstated and should not be underestimated. Not all risks and threats to the information technology infrastructure of a modern business can be completely eliminated, but business continuity and disaster recovery planning can prepare an organisation for catastrophic contingencies through providing detailed plans and strategies for how that business can continue to operate during, and after even the most severe of interruptions.Continue reading to learn more about the importance of business continuity and disaster recovery planning, or call us at soma technology group on 1300 131 559 and ask us how our managed services can help to prepare your business or organisation to survive even when disaster strikes.

What is Business Continuity?

Business continuity means the ability of a business to persevere through adverse circumstances in continuing to deliver goods and services at a viable level after an otherwise disruptive major incident.

Business Continuity and Information Technology

In the context of information technology, business continuity refers to ensuring that specifically the IT infrastructure required for an ongoing, sustained operation of an organisation’s essential services continues to operate in at least minimally viable capacity. Effective business continuity planning begins with the identification of crucial mission-critical and essential-to-operation components of a business’ IT infrastructure.

The Importance of Business Continuity

The importance of business continuity plan development then becomes clear – once the key components of a business’ IT infrastructure, without which that business cannot continue to operate whatsoever, are identified, it becomes obvious that those IT components need to be protected or have failover alternatives available. In other words, key IT infrastructure of a business, is the business and business continuity planning aims to protect it or provide alternatives should it fail.

What is Disaster Recovery Planning?

Disaster recovery planning is a subset of business continuity and focuses on the restoration of a business’ information technology systems to full operation, as they were prior to the disaster rather than just providing the bare minimum infrastructure required for the business to operate at all. A disaster recovery plan outlines a roadmap to a full restoration of all IT services used by an organisation, not just the essential ones.

The Importance of Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Planning

Not placing serious importance of business continuity plan development and proper disaster recovery planning is the same as neglecting the business itself. Business continuity combined with disaster recovery planning is a practical insurance policy that can significantly minimise damage and prevent severe losses when an organisation faces a human-induced (such as a catastrophic human error or an attack by a malicious actor) or a natural disaster.

How Can We Help?

Cloud and digital transformation is an effective (but not the only) way in which business continuity can be ensured and disaster recovery can be executed. For one, moving to the cloud reduces the number of digital technologies a business has to directly maintain. It frees you from having to worry about keeping the most mission critical components of your entire IT system on-site, outsourcing things like data storage, back-up solutions and some aspects of your digital security to off-site, professional data centres with multiple layers of both digital and physical security as well as extensive, multi-site back-up capabilities.Secure your business’ future and adequately prepare it to persist through even the most severe disruptions. Call soma technology group, your trusted partner in managed IT services, on 1300 131 559 or get in touch online now, to get started today.