Network DRP and BCP: Ensuring Business Continuity

April 15, 2026·2 min read·296 words

Network DRP/BCP: Disaster Recovery Plan and Business Continuity Plan. NIS2/DORA + ISO 22301 requirements. Geo-redundant architecture, RTO/RPO, and semiannual testing. 2026 guide for CIOs.

BCP vs DRP

BCP (Continuity): maintain operations during an incident (before recovery)
DRP (Recovery): restore operations after a major disaster
Both are required for complete resilience

Key Metrics

RTO (Recovery Time Objective): maximum time before restoration
RPO (Recovery Point Objective): acceptable data loss
MTTR (Mean Time To Recover): actual average recovery time
MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures): reliability

DR Architecture

Active-Active (2 operational DCs)

Real-time synchronization
Global load balancing (GSLB)
RTO/RPO <1 min
Cost: 2× infrastructure, but no unused capacity
Synchronous replication: <100 km maximum

Active-Standby

Secondary site in warm standby
Automatic failover
RTO <15 min, RPO <5 min
Cost: 1.5× infrastructure

Cold DR

Secondary site powered off and started after an incident
RTO 4-24h, RPO depending on backup
Cost-effective but slow

Geographic Distance

<100 km: synchronous replication possible, with shared regional risk
100-500 km: asynchronous, fast replication
>500 km: protection against regional disasters
Multi-region cloud: AWS us-east-1 + eu-west-1

DR Network

DCI: dedicated links between DCs (dark fiber, MPLS, Internet IPsec)
DNS GSLB: public IP failover
SD-WAN: automatic rerouting
Network backup: 4G/5G for the secondary DC

Testing

At least semiannually (strict annual requirement for certifications)
Scenarios: DC loss, ransomware, cyberattack
Real isolation (not a simulation)
Detailed documentation + lessons learned
Business stakeholder involvement is mandatory

Certifications / Compliance

ISO 22301: Business Continuity Management
NIS2: requires annual testing
DORA: testing + TLPT for the financial sector
HDS: mandatory BCP for healthcare

BCP/DRP Budget

SMEs: 10-30% of the IT budget
Mid-market companies: 15-25%
Large enterprises: 20-35%
Tier 1 (5 nines): 5% upgrade vs standard

Order from OPTINOC

Turnkey BCP/DRP architecture: multi-DC design + SD-WAN + testing. NIS2/DORA/ISO 22301 compliance. Quote within 1 week.