What is a business continuity plan (BCP)?

D4 ยท Operations  ยท  CompTIA Security+ SY0-701
A BCP (Business Continuity Plan) is a comprehensive document that outlines how an organization will maintain or quickly resume critical business functions during and after a disaster โ€” natural, technical, or human-caused.

BCP includes: BIA (Business Impact Analysis) โ€” identifies critical functions and recovery priorities; recovery strategies; DR plan; communication plan; testing schedule.

Key metrics: RTO (Recovery Time Objective) โ€” maximum acceptable downtime; RPO (Recovery Point Objective) โ€” maximum acceptable data loss.
BCP is broader than DRP. BCP = keeping the business running. DRP = recovering IT systems. BIA is done first to identify which systems have the lowest RTO/RPO (most critical). Know RTO vs RPO โ€” they appear heavily on the exam.
โ† Back to Glossary Practice Questions โ†’