Disaster vs. Disruption: How to Make “Disaster Recovery” Relevant to Everyday Life

By jfeldman February 28, 2008 @ 3:36 pm

When approached by vendors offering “Disaster Recovery” or “Disaster Preparedness” solutions, the first thought of many people is “I have more pressing problems than worrying about the next great earthquake/tsunami/flood/apocalypse.” Much to the consternation of DR/DP vendors, such thoughts are usually correct.

When most people visualize the word disaster, they think of major catastrophes, such as the Loma Prieta earthquake, hurricane Katrina, or the recent Southern California wildfires. While disasters like these are of high impact, meaning that they have the potentially to significantly effect the viability of a person, family or business, they’re of low frequency, and though it’s nice to be prepared for the impending meteor strike, there are probably better uses for one’s much time and effort.

This doesn’t mean one should ignore Disaster Recovery, it simply means that Disaster Recovery is generally a misnomer, a series of activities that have been incorrectly labeled. What most vendors are really selling, what the services offered really provide, is Disruption Recovery. Unlike disasters, disruptions happen with great frequency. They’re usually less catastrophic, but their net impact for a given business can be severe. A disruptive event might include a server disk-crash, a power failure, a water-main break, or any number of hundreds of day-to-day events that can cause a business to loose the ability to operate. Preparing for disruption is generally cost-effective and rational.

The steps taken for Disaster Recovery, including backing up and replicating critical data, determining the core assets of a business and determining how to continue operations if the office becomes unavailable, are all the same activities one needs to undertake for Disruption Recovery; it’s only the images evoked by the words “disaster” and “disruption” that are different. But language is a powerful thing. If DR vendors want to ensure that they’re thought of as a necessary service rather than an optional one, they need to start working on moving the capital d away from the improbable and towards the common.