What is the difference between disaster recovery and business continuity?

Disaster recovery (DR) and business continuity (BC) are related but distinct concepts focused on maintaining operations during disruptions. Disaster recovery specifically addresses restoring IT systems, data, and technical infrastructure after an incident, such as a cyberattack or hardware failure. Business continuity is broader, ensuring that critical business functions—including non-IT processes like communication, staffing, and supply chains—continue during and after a disruption. The key difference is scope: DR is a technical subset of BC, which covers the entire organization’s ability to operate.

Disaster recovery plans focus on minimizing downtime for systems and data. For example, if a ransomware attack encrypts a company’s databases, DR strategies might involve restoring backups, spinning up redundant servers in a secondary data center, or leveraging cloud-based failover systems. Technical teams define metrics like Recovery Time Objective (RTO), which sets the maximum acceptable downtime, and Recovery Point Objective (RPO), which determines how much data loss is tolerable. Developers might implement tools like automated backup scripts, database replication, or infrastructure-as-code templates to ensure systems can be rebuilt quickly. DR is reactive—it kicks in after a disaster occurs—and is often prioritized based on system criticality (e.g., restoring payment processing before internal HR tools).

Business continuity, on the other hand, ensures that the organization can maintain essential services even if some systems are unavailable. For instance, if a flood damages an office, BC plans might outline remote work protocols, alternate supplier agreements, or manual workarounds for customer-facing processes. BC includes non-technical elements like communication plans for employees, legal compliance during disruptions, and predefined decision-making hierarchies. While DR might restore a crashed e-commerce platform, BC ensures that customer support teams can still handle inquiries via alternate channels (e.g., phone instead of live chat) and that revenue isn’t fully halted. Developers contribute to BC by identifying dependencies—like third-party APIs or cloud providers—and ensuring redundancies or fallback mechanisms exist. Ultimately, DR supports BC by resolving technical bottlenecks, but BC requires cross-functional coordination to keep the business running holistically.