--- title: "Business Continuity vs. Disaster Recovery vs. Backup: Where do you Stand?" description: nScaled joined Spiceworks three months ago. Cool crowd, great discussions, and good spirit of competition between vendors. Acronis, of course, has been there much longer and has a very strong following. It’s interesting to observe the two different audiences – backup, and disaster recovery. But are they really so far apart? This is what I’ve been thinking when I saw a question posted by Mary – and felt that this is my opportunity to connect the two crowds, and perhaps explain how close they are. canonical_url: https://www.acronis.com/en/blog/posts/business-continuity-vs-disaster-recovery-vs-backup-where-do-you-stand/ locale: en last_updated: 2026-10-27 --- [Acronis Blog](https://www.acronis.com/en/blog/) # Business Continuity vs. Disaster Recovery vs. Backup: Where do you Stand? nScaled joined Spiceworks three months ago. Cool crowd, great discussions, and good spirit of competition between vendors. Acronis, of course, has been there much longer and has a very strong following. It’s interesting to observe the two different audiences – backup, and disaster recovery. [Learn More](https://www.acronis.com/en/products/cyber-protect/) [![Image 2: David Rosenberg](https://staticfiles.acronis.com/images/content/4ebd2c6ab90855a20d45286557169382.png)](https://www.acronis.com/en/blog/authors/david-rosenberg/ "David Rosenberg") [David Rosenberg](https://www.acronis.com/en/blog/authors/david-rosenberg/) 3 min read Last updated 28 November 2022 nScaled joined Spiceworks three months ago. Cool crowd, great discussions, and good spirit of competition between vendors. Acronis, of course, has been there much longer and has a very strong following. It’s interesting to observe the two different audiences – backup, and disaster recovery. But are they really so far apart? This is what I’ve been thinking when I saw a question posted by Mary – and felt that this is my opportunity to connect the two crowds, and perhaps explain how close they are. ## The question was: Business Continuity vs. Data Backup: Which Are You Offering? Excellent question. There is a lot of confusion out there re. what is BC (business continuity), and what’s the relationship between backup, DR (disaster recofery), etc… Let me answer – we are the leading DR vendor, so we know “at least something” about it :-) BC means assuring your business survives natural or man-made disasters, whether they cause loss of data, or loss of IT service (applications), or network connectivity issues. All three components are critical to your IT. In our world a true IT BC should cover all three aspects. And yes, there is a lot more in BC than IT, but the rest of it is outside of our scope. Modern IT BC technology can assure that your IT service is never down (or can be brought back online very quickly). Definitely, data needs to be backed up, and how often you do it depends on your RPO (recovery point objective) requirement. How much data can you lose? It depends on your business – how critical the data is, how often it changes, and how much of it is produced. If you are a bank where thousands of ATM transactions are run every second – your RPO is probably very short so customers don’t lose their money. Applications is different issue. If your data center is down you need to be able to quickly failover to DR provider’s data center and restart your applications ASAP. That’s what we call full server recovery. This will also mitigate networking issues, because in today’s modern software-defined data center, what you get from your DR provider is a logical representation of your entire data center “in the cloud”. So you get everything by accessing it remotely – virtual networks, applications, and data (assuming you backed it up with the same DR provider). Now, how fast your servers can fail-over to the cloud depends on your RTO (recovery time objective) – this is defined by whether your replicated environment is “cold” or “warm”, how automated the recovery process is (vs. all manual), and the support your are getting in real time from your DR provider. As they say, the devil is in the details, but with today’s technology you can get RTO in minutes if you need it. This is a quick, 30,000 ft. view… Let me know if you’d like to dive deeper – always happy to help. [Cybersecurity](https://www.acronis.com/en/blog/tags/cybersecurity/) [Cyber protection](https://www.acronis.com/en/blog/tags/cyber-protection/) ## Written by ![Image 3: David Rosenberg](https://staticfiles.acronis.com/images/content/4ebd2c6ab90855a20d45286557169382.png) David Rosenberg [Previous post](https://www.acronis.com/en/blog/posts/now-hiring-data-protection-officer/) [Now Hiring: Data Protection Officer?](https://www.acronis.com/en/blog/posts/now-hiring-data-protection-officer/) [Next post](https://www.acronis.com/en/blog/posts/defense-against-cybersecurity-risks/) [Defense Against Cybersecurity Risks](https://www.acronis.com/en/blog/posts/defense-against-cybersecurity-risks/) About Acronis Acronis is a leader in AI-native cyber protection, unifying data protection, cybersecurity, IT operations and hybrid infrastructure to deliver business continuity, security and compliance with less cost and complexity. More than 21,000 service providers trust Acronis to protect over 750,000 businesses in 150 countries. Acronis is headquartered in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. [Add as a preferred source on Google](https://google.com/preferences/source?q=acronis.com) ## Related stories Want to learn more? Read the latest stories featuring this solution on our blog. [Acronis Blog](https://www.acronis.com/en/blog/) ![Image 4: stc Bahrain and Acronis partner to bring advanced endpoint security to businesses in Bahrain](https://staticfiles.acronis.com/images/blog-card/9600f3eea83b8f4e168ea6c1409c8c26.png) [stc Bahrain and Acronis partner to bring advanced endpoint security to businesses in Bahrain](https://www.acronis.com/en/blog/posts/stc-bahrain-and-acronis-partner-to-bring-endpoint-security-to-businesses/) We are proud to announce a strategic partnership with stc Bahrain, expanding access to advanced cybersecurity services for businesses across Bahrain. **October 26, 2026**3 min read ![Image 5: Introducing New Acronis CEO: Prakash Panjwani](https://staticfiles.acronis.com/images/blog-card/30cb571f6f1aaa131733e5727a4a250c.png) [Introducing New Acronis CEO: Prakash Panjwani](https://www.acronis.com/en/blog/posts/introducing-new-acronis-ceo-prakash-panjwani/) We are pleased to announce the appointment of our new Chief Executive Officer, Prakash Panjwani. A veteran cybersecurity CEO, Panjwani previously served as CEO of WatchGuard Technologies and SafeNet. **October 15, 2026**2 min read ![Image 6: Acronis expands MDR toward broader workspace protection](https://staticfiles.acronis.com/images/blog-card/18e90e89f5ec4ef0901f19008d4ccbf2.png) [Acronis expands MDR toward broader workspace protection](https://www.acronis.com/en/blog/posts/acronis-expands-mdr-toward-broader-workspace-protection/) Acronis is expanding the MDR service with capabilities that make this expertise easier to deliver and help partners address more risks. The developments build on a broader commitment to managed security: helping service providers protect the connected workspace while giving customers access to the expertise needed to investigate threats, respond effectively and maintain business continuity. **October 13, 2026**6 min read