Question

What is “disaster recovery and business continuity planning?” How does disaster recovery planning (DRP) and business continuity planning (BCP) relate to Accounting Information Systems (AIS)? Please include citations or links to any sources used! Thank you

Answer 1

A disaster recovery plan (DRP) is a documented, structured approach with instructions for responding to unplanned incidents. This step-by-step plan consists of the precautions to minimize the effects of a disaster so the organization can continue to operate or quickly resume mission-critical functions. Typically, disaster recovery planning involves an analysis of business processes and continuity needs. Before generating a detailed plan, an organization often performs a business impact analysis (BIA) and risk analysis (RA), and it establishes the recovery time objective (RTO) and recovery point objective (RPO).

A business continuity plan (BCP) is a plan to help ensure that business processes can continue during a time of emergency or disaster. Such emergencies or disasters might include a fire or any other case where business is not able to occur under normal conditions. Businesses need to look at all such potential threats and devise BCPs to ensure continued operations should the threat become a reality.