Business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) planning helps an organization keep its most important services running—or restore them in a deliberate order—when a disruption occurs. Business continuity focuses on resuming critical services; disaster recovery focuses on restoring the technology, applications, and data those services depend on. A practical plan connects the two: identify what matters, set recovery objectives, choose workable strategies, protect backups, and test the plan.
What does BCDR mean?
BCDR is a coordinated approach to preparing for disruption and recovering essential operations. NIST describes information-system contingency planning as a combination of plans, procedures, and technical measures for recovering systems, operations, and data. Depending on the situation, that can include alternate equipment, temporary manual processing, or work at an alternate location. NIST’s contingency-planning definition outlines this broad approach.
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The terms are related, but they address different parts of recovery. British Columbia’s government policy provides a useful working distinction: business continuity plans focus on resuming critical services, while disaster recovery plans document how to restore the technology and data that support them. Terminology and plan boundaries can vary by organization; the important thing is that operational needs and IT recovery are coordinated.
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Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →| Plan area | Main question | Typical focus |
|---|---|---|
| Business continuity | How will we keep or resume critical services? | People, facilities, processes, communications, suppliers, and temporary workarounds |
| Disaster recovery | How will we restore the systems and data those services need? | Technology, applications, data, restoration order, and recovery procedures |
This distinction reflects the Province of British Columbia’s Chapter 16: Business Continuity Management; its policy applies to its own government context, not universally.
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How to build a BCDR plan
Start with essential services and work toward recovery actions. The sequence below is a planning framework, not a substitute for organization-specific analysis or applicable legal and regulatory advice.
- Identify critical services and dependencies. List the services or functions the organization must preserve, then map the people, facilities, technology, data, communications, suppliers, and other resources each one relies on. Document dependencies explicitly; a service may depend on systems or vendors outside the team responsible for it.
- Assess disruption impacts and priorities. A business impact analysis (BIA) considers how disruption affects functions over time and helps establish which ones need attention first. NIST’s SP 800-34 Rev. 1 describes contingency-planning priorities for federal information systems, while British Columbia’s policy also addresses impact analysis and prioritization. The NIST guide’s federal framing should be kept in mind when applying it elsewhere.
- Set recovery objectives for each priority. Define how quickly a function must return and how much data loss, if any, is tolerable. These targets should follow the impact analysis, not a generic rule of thumb.
- Choose strategies that can meet the objectives. Consider alternate equipment, manual workarounds, and alternate locations where they fit the service and its dependencies. Document who activates the plan, who does what, how people communicate, what resources are needed, and the procedures for recovery.
- Protect data and plan for cyber recovery. Maintain offline, encrypted backups of critical data and regularly test that they are available and intact. During recovery, prioritize critical systems and avoid restoring compromised systems in a way that reintroduces an attacker or malware. CISA covers these practices in its #StopRansomware Guide.
- Exercise, maintain, and improve the plans. Test realistic scenarios, capture what failed or was unclear, and revise plans accordingly. NIST SP 800-184 recommends realistic recovery testing and continual improvement based on lessons learned. British Columbia’s policy is an example of a jurisdiction-specific requirement for maintaining and exercising plans; its rules should not be treated as universal mandates.
What are RTO and RPO?
Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO) describe different limits for a disrupted service. The Province of British Columbia defines these concepts in its continuity policy:
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- RTO: the amount of time a function can tolerate interruption before the consequences become unacceptable.
- RPO: the point in time to which backed-up data must be recoverable, measured relative to the disruption.
For example, an organization might decide that a particular service must resume within its chosen interruption tolerance and that restored data must be no older than its chosen recovery point. Those values depend on the function, impact of downtime or data loss, dependencies, and available resources. Neither objective can be responsibly set for every organization in a general guide.
How to choose a recovery strategy
Compare each option against the service it is meant to restore—not simply against whether a technology or facility is available. A strategy that cannot meet a function’s objectives, or that depends on an unavailable supplier or network, does not provide usable recovery for that function.
- Fit to RTO and RPO: Can the strategy restore the service and its data within the targets established for that function?
- Service impact and priority: Does the strategy protect the functions with the most consequential disruption first?
- Dependencies: Are people, facilities, data, communications, suppliers, and supporting systems available in the scenario being planned for?
- Resources and cost: Can the organization fund, staff, and maintain the approach, including the resources needed during an incident?
- Evidence from exercises: Have tests shown that the strategy works in practice and can meet the stated objectives?
British Columbia’s policy identifies alignment with recovery needs, financial planning, and exercises as relevant considerations in its own setting. The same dimensions are useful for general comparison, but they do not determine an organization’s preferred architecture.
What should a BCDR plan contain?
A plan is useful only if responders can act on it under pressure. Tailor its contents to the organization and the services in scope; at a minimum, make sure the plan records:
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- Critical services and their owners, priorities, dependencies, and required resources.
- Activation conditions, decision-makers, roles, and escalation paths.
- Recovery objectives and the restoration order for supporting systems and data.
- Procedures for alternate equipment, manual processing, alternate locations, or other selected strategies.
- Communication methods and contact information for staff, suppliers, and other necessary parties.
- Backup and restoration procedures, including how to verify data integrity and reduce the risk of reinfection after a cyber incident.
- Exercise results, maintenance responsibilities, and a process for incorporating lessons learned.
Plans should reflect the organization’s actual operations and applicable jurisdiction-specific duties. No general reference can determine an individual organization’s recovery targets, dependencies, legal obligations, or best recovery design.
How to test and maintain the plan
Testing should reveal whether the plan can be followed and whether it achieves the recovery objectives—not merely whether a document exists. NIST SP 800-184, Guide for Cybersecurity Event Recovery, recommends prioritizing recovery resources, building realistic test scenarios, and continually improving recovery planning from lessons learned.
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- Use scenarios that reflect plausible disruptions to the organization’s critical services and dependencies.
- Check whether people can find and follow procedures, communicate, and obtain required resources.
- Test backup restoration and integrity, not just backup creation or availability.
- Record gaps, assign owners to corrective actions, and update procedures when systems, suppliers, services, or responsibilities change.
- Repeat exercises often enough to keep plans usable; the specific schedule should follow applicable requirements and organizational risk rather than assuming one rule applies everywhere.
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