Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery

full backup

As its name implies, this backup copies everything to a backup media. It is usually tape, but is sometimes CD, DVD, or disk.

differential backup

With this type of backup, you start by making a full backup, perhaps on Sunday, when network traffic is lightest. On Monday through Saturday, you back up changes made since Sunday's full backup on a daily basis. As the week progresses, each night's backup (the differential) takes a little longer.

business impact analysis

A prerequisite analysis for a business continuity plan that prioritizes business operations and functions and their associated IT systems, applications, and data and the impact of an outage or downtime.

full interruption test

The most common way to conduct this type of test is at the alternate site. This type of test is so disruptive that few organizations conduct it. During the test, you must shut down the original system for the duration. You can use only those processes that exist at the alternate site to continue the business operations.

simulation test

identifies staff reaction and response times, inefficiencies or previously unidentified vulnerabilities purpose: to identify shortcomings

recovery point objective

maximum acceptable level of data loss after a disaster

parallel test

same as full-interruption test except that processing does not stop at primary site

incremental backup

start with a full backup when network traffic is light. Then, each night, you back up only that day's changes. As the week progresses, the nightly (incremental) backup takes about the same amount of time.

recovery time objective

timeframe for restoring a critical business function. Must be shorter than or equal to the maximum tolerable downtime