Operations and → Management Business Continuity

Business Continuity (BCP)

1) What is BCP and why is it needed

BCP (Business Continuity Planning) is a systematic approach to ensuring the stability of business processes in any failure: from a data center failure to a provider crisis, data leakage or sudden load growth.
In high-load products (iGaming, fintech, marketplaces), this is not only about infrastructure - it is about maintaining trust, compliance with regulatory obligations and protecting revenue.

• Maintain availability of critical services and data.
• Minimize recovery time (RTO) and data loss (RPO).
• Ensure the operability of teams, communications and external partners in crisis.
• Standardize staff response and training.

2) Main components of BCP

1. BIA (Business Impact Analysis) - assess the impact of failures on processes and business.
2. Risks and scenarios are a matrix of threats (infrastructure, external, human).
3. Target RTO/RPO - Recovery and loss targets.
4. Recovery Plan (DRP) - Detailed steps to restart systems and processes.
5. Communications - internal and external channels, notification templates.
6. Testing and revision - regular checks, exercises, post-analysis.
7. Documentation and version control - centralized access and relevance.

3) Impact analysis (BIA)

The BIA determines which processes are critical and how quickly they should be restored.

1. List of all business processes (Payments, Bets, Games, KYC, Support).

2. Define dependencies (services, data, providers, employees).

3. Failure impact assessment: financial, legal, reputational, operational.

4. Set RTO/RPO for each process.

5. Prioritization: "Must Have," "Should Have," "Nice to Have."

4) Risk Matrix

5) RTO, RPO and criticality levels

Recovery Time Objective (RTO) - how much time is allowed before recovery.
Recovery Point Objective (RPO) - how much data can be lost.

6) DRP (Disaster Recovery Plan)

The goal is to ensure rapid and consistent system recovery.

1. Identify scenarios (data center disaster, PSP failure, key compromise, network loss).

2. For each script - a ready-made step-by-step playbook.

3. Support DR infrastructure: backup clusters, database replicas, CDN/edge.

4. Regularly test RTO/RPO and failover procedures.

5. Store all instructions in a single version-controlled repository.

Scenario: EU region falls
RTO: 30 min    RPO: 5 min
Actions:
1. Activate plan DR # EU
2. Switch DNS → AP Region
3. Verify database consistency (replication lag ≤ 60s)
4. Update Status on StatusPage
5. Perform API benchmarking

7) Organization of teams and roles

BCP coordinator: program owner, organizes audits and tests.
DR lead: responsible for the technical implementation of DR plans.
Domain Owners: ensure the continuity of their processes (Payments, Games, KYC).
Communications team: responsible for internal/external notifications and status platforms.
HR/Admin: BCP for personnel (remote, communication, access).
Legal/Compliance: Regulatory Notices and Legal Actions.

8) Communications in crisis

• Clear channels and redundant contacts.
• The first update is within 15 minutes after the incident.
• Unified tone of communication, facts and ETA.
• Updates every N minutes until the incident closes.
• After recovery - report and postmortem.

[HH: MM] PSP-X failed. Impact: Deposits in EU region.
Measures: feilover on PSP-Y. ETA stabilization: 30 min.
The next update is at 15:00.

9) Testing and drills

Technical: failover tests, database recovery, DDoS simulations.
Operating rooms: handover/role change teams.
Full BCP exercises: "blackout" scenario or provider unavailability.

• DR tests - quarterly;
• BCP-full-scale exercise - 1-2 times a year.
• Documentation: results, deviations from RTO/RPO, improvement actions.

10) Metrics and KPIs

RTO compliance:% of processes restored ≤ target.
RPO compliance:% of processes with no data loss> target.
DR test success rate: successful tests of recovery procedures.
BCP coverage: percentage of processes with up-to-date plans (> 90%).
Comms SLA: first summary ≤ 15 min, ETA updates.

Postmortem SLA: 100% critical events with 72 h ≤ analysis

11) Documentation and knowledge management

Single BCP storage (versions, owners, revision dates).
Version control: revision at least once every 6 months.
Availability: offline copies and backup communication channels (including telecom/instant messengers).
Integrations: reference to BCP in SOPs, incident processes and operational dashboards.
Synchronization with Risk Register and Security Policies.

12) 30/60/90 - implementation plan

• Identify BCP owner and critical processes.
• Perform basic BIA and classification (RTO/RPO).
• Create a risk matrix and a catalog of incident scenarios.
• Develop DRP template and first version for priority services.

• Conduct pilot DR testing (failover, database recovery).
• Prepare communication templates and role distribution.
• Create a single repository of BCP documents and SOP integration.
• Start training teams and on-call personnel.

• Conduct an inter-team BCP exercise.
• Audit compliance of RTO/RPO and KPI metrics.
• Finalize the plan for revising and automating BCP processes.
• Include BCP in quarterly OKRs and internal security reviews.

13) Anti-patterns

"BCP for show only": no real tests and no owners.
Outdated DR instructions that do not match current architectures.
Unverified communication channels and contacts.
Unaccounted dependencies (PSP, CDN, KYC providers).
Lack of post-mortems after failures.
There is no offline access to BCP when the network drops.

14) Example of BCP document structure

1. Objectives and Scope
2. Critical Processes (BIA)
3. Risk Matrix
4. Target RTO/RPO
5. DRP (by scenario)
6. Contacts and Roles
7. Communication templates
8. Schedule of tests and exercises
9. Reporting and auditing
10. Version and update history

15) Integration with other sections

Operational analytics: headroom and degradation to incidents metrics.
Notification and alert system: early signals to trigger BCP procedures.
Management ethics: transparent reports and honest tests.
AI assistants: automatic preparation of BCP summaries and DR-check lists.
Culture of responsibility: trainings, "game days," retrospectives.

16) FAQ

Q: How is BCP different from DRP?
A: BCP - broader: covers people, processes, communications, partners and infrastructure. DRP - technical plan for IT system recovery.

Q: How often do I update BCP?
A: After every major architecture change, incident or at least 1 every 6 months.

Q: Do I need to include partners?
A: Yes. PSP, KYC and studios - part of the continuity chain, must have their OLA and BCP agreements.