Contingency plan refers to an alternative to the normal procedure triggered if an unusual but anticipated situation arises.  A disaster recovery plan or DRP refers to a plan for business continuity in the event of a disaster that destroys part or all of a business's resources, including IT equipment, data records and the physical space of an organization. The purpose of having a DRP is to resume normal computing capabilities in as little time as possible.

Your business continuity plan should be able to answer the following questions: the who, what, where, why and when of recovery.  What addresses the plan to minimize business interruption and maximize business continuity.  Who refers to the manpower or the team that will work together in case an interruption occurs.  This includes people from IT, telecommunications, facilities and power, customer relations, public relations, billing, customer service, and human resources.  Where refers to the location or alternative sites.  Why is the goal or purpose of the recovery plan: to identify key risks, minimize damages and maximize business continuity.  And lastly, When has to do with the priorities of the recovery, when should a plan be implemented and for what situation.

Steps in creating a business continuity plan:

1.  Risk Analysis
Assess and list down all the possible risks that you consider a threat to your system uptime.  Also consider the possibility of this occurring - how imminent is the threat in other words.  Manmade threats like virus attacks, hacking, data deletions and natural threats like floods, fires, earthquakes and others should all be considered as reasons for system outage.  Rate the risks into low, medium and high classification and rank them according to probability and impact.

2.  Come up with a Budget
You should also come up with a budget for every solution/plan you had after analyzing your risks.  Knowing how much your plan will cost is very important in determining whether your plan can be achieved or not.  Also remember that system downtime also comes with a cost.  This will help you determine the downtime your company can afford.  System downtime means lost opportunity for the company.  This will also help you realize what is low, medium and high risks and will also help you calculate the recovery time you need to minimize the risks for your company.

Solutions can vary and your company may not be able to afford it, so go to the next best remedy then or you can come up with alternatives that also works.  Work only within your budget.

3.  Develop your Plan
After Step 1 and Step 2, you are ready to develop your plan.  Based on the risks and budget, write your plans.  Include the procedures, the manpower and their duties.  How to determine the actual damage?  Who should do what in the recovery process? How it should be done?  What needs to be recovered first?  How the plan should be monitored? 

Also create a checklist to be sure that the recovery procedure was executed according to plan and the expected result was achieved.

4.  Testing
After developing your plan, you need to test it even before the real problem occurs.  Walking-through your plan will validate the effectivity of your plan.  Write down the result of your every test and assess the variance between the actual and the plan.  Improve on your plan and test it as often as possible until you reach the workable business continuity plan for your company.

Always remember that business will face a lot of challenges and changes, your plan should be flexible enough to adjust and adopt to these changes.  A business continuity plan is as important as setting up your business.  Having a disaster recovery plan is as important as your setting up your I.T. infrastructure.  There will be instances that are beyond your control and it is mandatory that you anticipate these threat and is ready to face and solve them all.  That is the whole essence of doing business - continued operation in good times and bad times.

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