What is business continuity planning and disaster recovery?

What is business continuity planning and disaster recovery?

• A. BCP maintains operations during disruption; DRP restores essential functions after disruption.
• B. BCP is a marketing plan; DRP is a financial plan.
• C. BCP is about firewall configuration; DRP is about intrusion detection.
• D. BCP and DRP are optional and rarely used.

Answer: (A)

This question tests understanding of what these two plans are for. Business continuity planning focuses on keeping the business operating during a disruption—finding ways to continue critical services, communication, and operations even when resources are limited. Disaster recovery planning, on the other hand, targets restoring the organization’s essential IT systems and data after the disruption has occurred, so normal operations can resume as quickly as possible. In practice, BCP sets the ongoing, high-level approach to staying functional, while DRP provides the concrete steps to recover technology and data that support those functions. For example, during a regional outage, a BCP might direct switching to an alternate site and using manual processes to keep customer service running; a DRP would outline restoring servers, data, and applications to bring systems back to a ready state. The other statements mischaracterize these plans—BCP isn’t a marketing plan, DRP isn’t about firewall configuration, and these plans are essential, not optional.

This question tests understanding of what these two plans are for. Business continuity planning focuses on keeping the business operating during a disruption—finding ways to continue critical services, communication, and operations even when resources are limited. Disaster recovery planning, on the other hand, targets restoring the organization’s essential IT systems and data after the disruption has occurred, so normal operations can resume as quickly as possible. In practice, BCP sets the ongoing, high-level approach to staying functional, while DRP provides the concrete steps to recover technology and data that support those functions. For example, during a regional outage, a BCP might direct switching to an alternate site and using manual processes to keep customer service running; a DRP would outline restoring servers, data, and applications to bring systems back to a ready state. The other statements mischaracterize these plans—BCP isn’t a marketing plan, DRP isn’t about firewall configuration, and these plans are essential, not optional.