Disaster recovery involves a set of policies, tools, and procedures to enable the recovery or continuation of vital technology infrastructure and systems following a natural or human-induced disaster. Disaster recovery focuses on the information technology (IT) or technology systems supporting critical business functionsSystems and Operations Continuity: Disaster Recovery.

<business> (DR) Planning and implementation of procedures and facilities for use when essential systems are not available for a period long enough to have a significant impact on the business, e.g. when the head office is blown up. Disasters include natural: fire, flood, lightning, hurricane; hardware: power failure, component failure, head crash; software failure: bugs, resources; vandalism: arson, bombing, cracking, theft; data corruption or loss: human error, media failure; communications: computer network equipment, network storm, telephones; security: passwords compromised, computer virus; legal: change in legislation; personnel: unavailability of essential staff, industrial action. Companies need to plan for disaster: before: risk analysis, preventive measures, training; during: how should staff and systems respond; after: recovery measures, post mortem analysis. Hardware can usually be replaced and is usually insured. Software and data needs to be backed up off site. Alternative communication systems should be arranged in case of network failure or inaccessible premises, e.g. emergency telephone number, home working, alternative data center. (2007-06-20)

Given organizations' increasing dependency on information technology to run their operations, Business continuity planning covers the entire organization, and Disaster recovery focuses on IT.