Business Continuity and Backup and Disaster Recovery: The Differences

Disaster recovery (DR) typically revolves around two concepts for managed services providers (MSPs): backup and disaster recovery (BDR) and business continuity (BC). If you're new to the market, do not be fooled by the common misconception that BDR and BC are synonymous — they're not. To help MSPs better understand the differences between BDR and BC, disaster recovery and businesss continuity solutions vendor Datto summarized each term in one of the company's blog posts. Here are the differences.

As we've said plenty of times, MSPs educate and consult. If MSPs can't understand the differences between BC and BDR, how will customers? Is BC a plan or process? What makes BDR and BC different?

What is business continuity in a nutshell?

Business continuity cannot be achieved through a single solution, for it is the overall being of a business.

It prepares a business for a disaster, but, more importantly, it protects a business from the outcome of a disaster. A plan needs to be in place to assist a business with recovery.

To achieve full business continuity, a business should plan how it will continue to operate during a disaster and find a business continuity solution that complements the plan. Employees should be trained to follow and implement these operational procedures in case of a disaster.

That sounds like BDR to me, so what makes BDR different?

BDR is about data, retrieving it during or after a disaster.

A BDR plan outlines how a business will obtain missing or lost files if a disaster were to strike. This plan is detrimental for a business to achieve full business continuity. Disaster can occur at any time and not just by nature.

Without a proper plan, servers or workstations could be out for hours, day, or weeks, depending on the severity of a disaster.

Even if you know the differences between BDR and BC, do your customers? Backup and disaster recovery works to fulfill full business continuity. Think of both as partners, not one and the same.