Doesn’t anyone use the term Disaster Recovery anymore?  Apparently, the term has morphed over years.  Disaster Recovery, as I remember, was exponentially popular in the late 90’s, spurred by the fear of the Y2K bug.  Since then, I’ve heard various different terms that, under the covers, really mean the same thing. ie….

Business Continuity

Network Resilience

Business Process Contingency Plan

Business Continuance

Business Recovery Objectives

Recovery Objective Planning

Continuity Management

Contingency Planning

(Now I’m confused…Can’t we just call a Potato a Spud?)

So..where and why all these different ways to say “Back up Plan”?

Is it possible that salesmen, reeking with commission breath, are constantly coining alternate terms to appear smarter than their competitor?  Is it collegiate posturing?  Is it corporate bantering?  Is it all meant to create confusion?  Do we need to get them all at the table to then hash out, in bloody detail, the tiny differences?  Or can we simply accept that if and when something goes wrong, and we have a Disaster Recovery Plan…“we’re ready”?

One of the guys on our team stopped in my office and said, “I had a marketing vision last night”.  (Long story short)..It was a mental image of a mouse sky diver.  The mouse pulled his main chute and it didn’t open.  The mouse was horrified!  He quickly pulled his back-up cord and the back-up chute puffed open and the mouse safely floated down.  The back-up chute had the Freewire Broadband name on it!  “What I don’t completely understand” he said,”if the internet is truly mission critical to most businesses…why is it that most companies we talk don’t to have a backup circuit or alternate path to the internet?”  I replied….great idea…but would would we call it?