Business continuity planning

Business Continuity Planning (BCP) is a methodology used to create a plan for how an organization will resume partially or completely interrupted critical function(s) within a predetermined time after a disaster or disruption. BCP may be a part of a larger organizational effort to reduce operational risk associated with poor information security controls, and thus has a number of overlaps with the practice of risk management.

The International Organization for Standardization and the British Standards Institute set BCP best practices under "ISO/IEC 17799:2000 Code of Practice for Information Security Management" and "BS 7799 Information Security" respectively. A completed BCP cycle results in a formal printed manual available for reference before, during, and after disruptions have occurred. For the purposes of this article, the term disaster will be used to represent natural disaster, man-made disaster, and disruptions. Business Continuity Planning is not a new concept; plans for disasters, like Noah's Ark, are evidenced from the beginning of human history.

In the years prior to January 1, 2000, governments anticipated computer failures, called the Y2k problem, in important social infrastructure like power, telecommunication, health and financial industries. Regulatory agencies subsequently required those industries to formalize BCP manuals to protect the public, those new regulations often based on the formalized standards defined under ISO/IEC 17799 or BS 7799. Regulatory and business focus on BCP arguably waned somewhat due to the problem-free Y2K rollover. This lack of interest unequivocally ended September 11th 2001, when simultaneous terrorist attacks devastated downtown New York City and changed the 'worst case scenario' paradigm for business continuity planning

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