There still seems to be some confusion over what disaster recovery really means. It’s definitely not the same thing as backup and recovery, although there are elements of backup within a DR plan. Here are the key differences between DR and backup.
Different In Scale
Backup and recovery focuses on restoring a lost or corrupted document or data file. Depending on the amount of data needing restoration, backup and recovery is a relatively quick process taking anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours. The important thing to remember is that backup and recovery is all about missing data.
On the other hand, disaster recovery is about the restoration of whole systems at another location other than your main operating site. DR involves many elements beyond the restoration of data, including recovery hardware, software and applications, internal and external communications and alternate organization, processes and procedures.
Different in Focus
Thus, not only is there a difference in scale between DR and backup and recovery, they also address different exposures or damages. DR tends to address the loss of access to physical things, while backup and recovery deals with the loss or corruption of data.
Furthermore, the two treat data differently. Backup and recovery usually retrieves a specific version of a particular data file, whether it’s a snapshot of last Friday night or a-month-ago-Tuesday-at-noon’s version of the file.
Alternately, DR tends to focus on the latest, most up-to-date complete version of all data, since it is about restoring entire systems expeditiously in a separate location. A DR plan will take the latest version of everything, set it up and run it somewhere else. The typical DR plan has no interest in just one particular snapshot of one particular file.
While disaster recovery and backup and recovery might sound the same to those not technically inclined, they serve alternate purposes in vastly different scenarios. Though it may not be a priority to understand the intricacies of each, the well-prepared business owner or manager will understand the fundamental differences between the two and know which to use, depending on the scenario. If you think of backup as a short, quick fix for small-scale crises involving specific files, then disaster recovery is the plan one goes to in the event of the big IT emergency.
