Disaster recovery is the process, policies and procedures related to preparing for recovery or continuation of technology infrastructure and data critical to an organization after a natural or human-induced disaster.
Disaster recovery planning is a subset of a larger process known as business continuity planning and should include planning for resumption of applications, data, hardware, communications (such as networking) and other IT infrastructure. A business continuity plan (BCP) includes planning for non-IT related aspects such as key personnel, facilities, crisis communication and reputation protection, and should refer to the disaster recovery plan (DRP) for IT related infrastructure recovery / continuity.
Disaster can be classified in two broad categories.
1) Natural disasters- Preventing a natural disaster is very difficult, but it is possible to take precautions to avoid losses. These disasters include flood, fire, earthquake, hurricane, etc
2) Man made disasters- These disasters are major reasons for failure. Human error and intervention may be intentional or unintentional which can cause massive failures such as loss of data. These disasters include accidents, walkouts, sabotage, burglary, virus, intrusion, etc.
Generaly speaking, the ability to restore data is an important part of disaster recovery, though it is part of the very last step of a disaster recovery plan : “Corrective measures”
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