Why do business continuity plans fall down at failback?

Connecting Software CEO contributed an article for Resilience Forward about why many Business Continuity Planning (BCP) solutions often show glaring weaknesses during the 'failback' process - the transition from a backup secondary environment to the primary one after a disaster.

Thomas explained:

"When an entire company moves its operations to a secondary or backup environment to preserve continuity, new data discrepancies with the original system immediately begin to emerge. New emails are written, files are edited, and contacts are changed – sometimes creating two different versions of the same data in different environments. Even in limited backups that aim to preserve minimal functionality, there is still new incoming data that needs to be processed...

Some backup solutions are ill-equipped to deal with this scenario, generally being set up to synchronise one-way (from primary to secondary), with very limited means to synchronise both ways without significant data conflicts and potential losses. This can lead to scenarios where the reconciliation process overwrites or fails to transfer critical data, which can add significant friction to post-disaster recovery. When failback is poorly planned, even though the initial problem might be gone, the disruption remains."

Connecting Software's BCP Solutions are fully equipped to get companies back on their feet after a disaster scenario like a cloud outage or IT failure, with advanced bi-directional synchronization that helps to minimize post-transition and failback data conflicts. Find out more here: https://www.connecting-software.com/microsoft-365-business-continuity/