Getting serious about business continuity

Getting serious about business continuity

Many valuable lessons and improved best practices have evolved since 9/11. However, for the vast majority of IT organisations (ITOs), they have gone back to business as usual when challenged with limited budget dollars. The main purpose of this report is not only to instil a sense of urgency in IT to more adequately address the lingering frailties within our infrastructures, but also to identify reasonable and achievable goals that allow the organisation to begin the process for real improvement. You need to know what to do, know how to do it, and be able to accomplish it and measure results. Business continuity is as much as (or more so) an operational and cultural challenge as a technology challenge.

Table of contents

Changing the focus

Business continuity success starts at the top

The ten steps of a business continuity solutions plan

Where to begin a business continuity effort

Establishing a baseline view of the business

Step 1 – Assess program/service levels
Step 2 – Define business requirements
Step 3 – Evaluate availability and recovery alternatives

Designing for the future

Weighing your options – steps to the ultimate solution

Categories of data protection

A representative recovery/availability framework

Step 4 – Design infrastructure

Leverage the experts

Step 5 – Conduct implementation planning

Building, testing and corporate instantiation

Step 6 – Implement and test technologies
Step 7 – Develop recovery/failover plans
Step 8 – Conduct recovery testing
Step 9 – Redevelop/update program definition
Step 10 – Manage resources, improvements and measurement