There’s a great article by James E. Gaskin in the latest issue of ChannelPro that talks about the difference between disaster recovery and business continuity.  It’s a great idea to talk about and clarify terms like this that are being used in various ways throughout the industry

We certainly appreciate any effort to explain these terms, but it’s important for us to note that we’re pretty particular with how we use them at StorageCraft. For Gaskin, these terms are more or less all descriptions of different types of disaster recovery. At StorageCraft, however, we see things more broadly. For us, backup is simply the act of securing data both locally and remotely. Disaster recovery, on the other hand, is the restoration of that data in the event of any kind of disaster, large and small.

While backup and disaster recovery are more or less events that occur at specific (though sometimes recurring) times, business continuity is a process. It’s that combination of best practices, procedures, and mindsets that keeps your business running no matter what happens. True business continuity includes physical processes like how to turn on the power after a blackout and such. That said, backup and DR are essential elements of good business continuity, especially in this day and age where data and applications are becoming more and more crucial to business operation and survival.

For us, ShadowProtect is primarily a BDR solution. It makes backup images, replicates them offsite, and checks to make sure those backup images are up-to-date and working. When necessary, it also facilitates flawless disaster recovery. Hardware Independent Restore is one way ShadowProtect ensures awesome DR, as is HeadStart Restore (which is a part of ShadowControl ImageManager).

However, ShadowProtect is also a business continuity solution, especially when paired with ShadowControl Image Manager, because it makes it easy for people to maintain a consistent operation, even in the event of a disaster. HeadStart Restore is one way to do this, and VirtualBoot enables a business to literally continue operating from their laptop while they’re waiting for the real disaster recovery to take place on a new server.

What do these terms mean to you? Do you interpret them differently? We’d love to hear your thoughts.