It’s common to see terms like backup and disaster recovery (DR) used interchangeably, and sometimes even incorrectly. We often encounter customers asking for a DR solution when what they really need is both backup and disaster recovery. Some in the industry refer to this combination as BDR (Backup & Disaster Recovery).
So, what’s the difference between backup and disaster recovery? And why does it matter?
Disaster Recovery (DR)
Disaster recovery focuses on restoring critical IT functions quickly after a disaster. Disasters can range from something as small as a critical server failure to large-scale events like fires, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, or even man-made incidents such as construction accidents, theft, sabotage, or chemical spills. These events can render your entire site unusable. The goal of DR is to bring critical IT services back online as quickly as possible. A comprehensive DR plan may involve much more than just data recovery — it might include alternate sites, spare hardware, and other contingency measures.
Backup
Backup, while it can play a role in disaster recovery, serves a broader purpose. Backup not only supports rapid recovery in the event of a disaster, but it also gives you access to the historical versions of your data. That’s a key difference between backup and disaster recovery.
There are DR products designed to provide a fast recovery to the most recent copy of a server, but they aren’t built to retrieve data from two weeks, six months, or years ago. With backup, you can access older versions of files, which is crucial for recovering from issues like data loss or corruption that happened in the past but are only noticed in the present.
For example, in the case of a ransomware attack, your most recent backups might include infected files. In this situation, you’d need to restore data from before the infection occurred. Backup also helps in more common scenarios, like accidentally overwriting an important file. If you saved over a monthly report in Word, a backup allows you to recover the original file.
Additionally, some industries are required by law to keep copies of their older data. For instance, medical providers must retain patient records for several years.
In summary, backup data can be used for DR, but it also includes past versions of data, allowing you to reproduce information as it existed at any given point in time.
Business Continuity
Business continuity refers to how an organization continues to perform essential functions despite a disaster. It goes beyond just restoring servers and data and often involves non-IT-related concerns as well.
Every organization’s business needs are unique. For example, some companies rely heavily on phone services to take customer calls, while others depend on specialized equipment that isn’t easily or quickly replaceable. When creating a business continuity plan, critical questions need to be asked: Who are the essential employees? What functions do they perform? Where will they work if the office becomes unusable? Data recovery is just one piece of a much larger puzzle in business continuity.
