Business Continuity Planning

Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery

Designing business continuity plans and disaster recovery procedures.

When to Use

• Ensuring business operations continue during disruptions
• Defining RTO (Recovery Time Objective) and RPO (Recovery Point Objective)
• Building DR plans for IT systems
• Complying with regulations requiring business continuity

BCP Framework

BCP_PHASES = {
    'analysis': 'Business Impact Analysis (BIA) — identify critical functions',
    'strategy': 'Define recovery strategies (active-passive, active-active, hot/warm/cold)',
    'planning': 'Document recovery procedures, roles, communication',
    'testing': 'Regular DR tests (tabletop, walkthrough, full failover)',
}

def business_impact_analysis(processes: List[Dict]) -> List[Dict]:
    for p in processes:
        if p.get('max_downtime_hours', 72) <= 4: p['priority'] = 'critical'
        elif p.get('max_downtime_hours', 72) <= 24: p['priority'] = 'high'
        else: p['priority'] = 'normal'
    return sorted(processes, key=lambda p: p.get('max_downtime_hours', 72))

Common Pitfalls

1. No testing — untested DR plans fail when needed
2. Unrealistic RTO — claiming 1-hour RTO for 4-hour restores
3. Only IT focus — BCP includes people, facilities, suppliers too
4. Single region failure — backup site in same disaster zone as primary

Verification Checklist

• BIA completed for critical processes
• RTO and RPO defined per system
• DR plan documented and versioned
• Crisis communication plan with contact lists
• DR test schedule (tabletop quarterly, full failover annually)
• Backup restoration tested regularly
• Off-site or cloud-based backups