Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity Flashcards

What is the primary purpose of a Business Impact Analysis (BIA) in a business continuity program?

Answer: To identify and prioritize critical business functions and quantify the impact of their disruption

A BIA identifies critical business functions, estimates financial and operational impacts of disruption, and informs recovery priority and resource allocation.

Which term describes the maximum tolerable length of time that a business process can be offline before causing unacceptable harm?

Answer: Maximum Tolerable Downtime (MTD)

MTD (also called Maximum Tolerable Period of Disruption) defines the absolute outer limit of acceptable downtime for a business process.

During a tabletop exercise, participants discover their DR plan references a vendor hotline that no longer exists. What should be the immediate corrective action?

Answer: Update the plan with current vendor contact information and reassign ownership for keeping it current

Tabletop exercises are designed to surface exactly these gaps; the correct response is to document and remediate the discrepancy and assign ongoing ownership.

A company replicates data to a secondary site every four hours. If a disaster occurs, what is the worst-case data loss scenario?

Answer: Up to four hours of data

The Recovery Point Objective is determined by the replication interval; with four-hour cycles, up to four hours of transactions could be lost.

Which recovery site type offers the fastest time-to-operational but also carries the highest ongoing cost?

Answer: Hot site

A hot site is a fully equipped, staffed, and continuously synchronized duplicate facility that can assume operations within minutes but incurs significant recurring costs.

In the context of disaster recovery, what does 'failback' mean?

Answer: Returning operations to the primary site after it has been restored

Failback is the planned process of transitioning workloads from the recovery/secondary site back to the restored primary environment.

Which document formally authorizes activation of the Business Continuity Plan and identifies who has that authority?

Answer: BCP Activation Authority Matrix

The Activation Authority Matrix (or equivalent document) specifies the conditions under which the BCP is triggered and which roles hold the authority to invoke it.