Understanding Business Continuity and DRP with IT Consulting in Los Angeles

It’s possible that, at one point or another, your business might face a disruptive event that may affect your business operations. That could range from small but risky computer malfunctions like a virus invasion, power failures, IT system crashes, and data loss; to huge disasters like fire, earthquakes, hurricanes, or terrorist attacks. What you need are good business continuity and disaster recovery planning (DRP) to keep your daily operations running normally— a trustworthy IT consulting firm in Los Angeles can help you implement these two.

Disaster recovery (DR) and business continuity planning (BCP) always go hand-in-hand that most people assume that there’s no difference between the two. To understand the difference, it’s only practical to define what each term means:

BCP describes the processes or procedures that a company puts in place to ensure that their business still runs normally even when a disaster strikes. Practically, it’s a plan that will enable them to deliver their products and services as usual even in the face of any calamity— be it system breakdowns or staff departure. The steps to be taken for business continuity are agreed upon in advance by the management or the company’s key personnel.

A DRP allows a business to plan their steps to quickly recover from a disaster attack. It’s the process of recovering access to the software, hardware, and data that is needed to resume normal business function after any disastrous event. Mostly, DRPs focus more on lost data, but you shouldn’t forget that a disaster may also come in the form of your employees; e.g. a certain illness, or even death, takes away one of your employees. IT consulting experts in Los Angeles recommend a strategy that will cater for all kinds of disasters— be it system related or staffing.

Most business executives tend to ignore the importance of having a DRP, forgetting that they may face minor and major disasters at any given time. It’s important to plan so that you can avoid downtimes and important losses.

BCP and DRP are often linked to each other, but the difference is clear:

• A BCP outlines the steps to take to ensure continued delivery of goods and services, while a DR dictates the steps to take to recover from a disaster.
• A BCP includes your business continuity strategy, impact analysis, and business continuity plans. A DR, on the other hand, contains your emergency response, evacuation plans, incident response, and damage assessment.

What’s most important is that a BCP/DRP should focus on both the IT and the human resources because you never know what kind of disastrous event is bound to occur.

For top-tier services from IT consulting experts in Los Angeles, consider us at DCG Technical Solutions. We’re dedicated to helping our customers with their tech troubles and any IT-related problem that may cause downtime. Don’t be stuck with unresponsive and slow services— we’ll work to ensure that your business thrives. Contact us today!