INTRODUCTION
With the emergence of BS25999-2:2007 (www.itgovernance.co.uk/products/1363), the first formal national standard for Business Continuity Management, the opportunity has emerged to develop a standard, common set of terms that can be used to discuss business continuity in a way that is consistent across the English-speaking business world. While all organisations implementing a business continuity management system based on BS25999 will need to use the definitions contained in that standard (all of which are, for clarity, italicised in this glossary), they are not comprehensive; there are many other terms and definitions that are likely to be relevant and important to the business continuity professional and, for these, alternative sources are required.
Two business continuity glossaries pre-existed the publication of BS25999 and have, to some extent, been incorporated into the definitions used in the new standard. These two glossaries are those published by the Business Continuity Institute (BCI) in 2002, and by the DRI (Institute for Continuity Management). While these two glossaries appear to have had a common ancestor, they have, in some details, diverged over the years.
To confuse matters further, there are terms used in ITIL® 1 (the IT Infrastructure Library®) and in other IT-related standards that, although they are the same as those used in BS25999, have different meanings. The present glossary therefore includes definitions from the ITILv3 glossary2 that are relevant to the business continuity world.
The other definitions are drawn from ISO/IEC 27001:2005 (the Information Security Management Standard), ISO/IEC 20000-1:2005 (the IT Service Management Standard), and from BS7799-3:2006 (the Information Security Risk Management Standard). There are also definitions contained in ISO 9000 and ISO/IEC Guide 73 that are, with the creation of a certification scheme for business continuity management, relevant to Business Continuity, and these definitions have also been included in this glossary.
The same or similar definitions are grouped together and listed alphabetically; the origin of each definition is identified alongside it.
Please note that definitions drawn from the DRI retain their American spelling and punctuation.
1 Trademarks:
ITIL ® is a Registered Trade Mark, and a Registered Community Trade Mark of the Office of Government Commerce, and is Registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. PRINCE ® is a Registered Trade Mark and a Registered Community Trade Mark of the Office of Government Commerce, and is Registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. M_o_R ® is a Registered Trade Mark and a Registered Community Trade Mark of the Office of Government Commerce.
2 ITIL Glossaries/Acronyms © Crown Copyright Office of Government Commerce. Reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Office of Government Commerce.