Business continuity and disaster recovery are, firstly, critical for any business that plans to stay in business, and, secondly, not synonymous. Business continuity refers to those things that ensure the business can remain operational in the face of minor hiccups and bog-standard crises, like regular power failures. Disaster recovery is what will ensure survival in the face of a major disaster; for example, your building burning down. Companies need to make plans for both.

Says CommVault business development director Bryan Balfe: “The biggest problem companies face with disaster recovery is the issue of where to start as it is such an amorphous, multifaceted problem without a single, neat solution.” This is partially the reason why companies either ignore the potential major disasters and focus on the small stuff, or do the converse – plan for total annihilation and forget to take the annual flu epidemic into account.