Read much on the interrelationships of ITIL. I have come to believe we have relied too much on technology to realize the practical values that Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity SHOULD deliver back to the business in terms of Configuration and Service Management. In it's simplest state, the difference between Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery is the difference between 'what's the worst that can happen?" and "now what?".

WHY DO WE DO IT? I dunno because we have to? Because the neighbors are? Face the bitter truth that IT people are more constrained to deliver than ever, and in a constant state of minimum process overhead, and maximum technological value, how do we do what's right WITH what's logical in the event of the unexpected?

The most common reason people look to the best practices of Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity is not that it's so darned interesting, but that it's so darned mandatory. Sure Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity is a good idea if you have time, but with Sarbanes Oxley (SoX), the relationship and requirements for good business controls that work WITH change management is a requirement for success.

CSO has a nice article defining the ABCs of BC and DR. And at an earlier ITSMF conference, Gary Donlon shared his vision of how the BCP and DR Processes interrelate in ITIL.

COMMONALITIES:
* Both need to include how employees will communicate, where they will go and how they perform their job functions.
* Both depend upon good change and configuration management to work well.

DIFFERENCES:
* Business issues where people, process and technology reflect the business process necessary to restore service from a holistic perspective.

* Disaster recovery issues where voice, data and network IT systems need to be brought back in proper sequence to restore process and technology function that allows business to continue.

TRAPS:
* Inadequate Change Management -- I built this DR/BCP plan because I had to.
* Business Performance Level Tolerance, can not be made in a vacuum.
* My friend Lou blogged recently on the impacts of virtualization on Service Management. At the heart of Change Management, Service Capacity and Business Continuity is a well managed CONFIGURATION, so all good planning starts with the heart of service management, and the head of the Config Management Database-- companies practicing workload balancing and virtualization need this level of clarity of a well constructed business continuity and disaster recovery plan to model the cost implications of disaster recovery mitigation.

* BCP http://www.walsall.gov.uk/index/policing_and_public_safety/developing_an_emergency_plan/business_continuity_plan_template_guide.htm

*Disaster Recovery
http://www.e-janco.com/DRP.htm