In the wake of unplanned events such as Hurricane Katrina, many companies have come to recognize the need for an effective and comprehensive business protection strategy to ensure business continuity. But 87 percent of disasters occur as a result of a planned event, such as scheduled maintenance on an IT system or testing a new data processing resource, which means that disaster protection planning should be a top priority for every company.
Unfortunately, it isn’t.
Without such a strategy, however, businesses can be left scrambling to recover. According to industry analysts, two out of five enterprises that experience a disaster will go out of business within five years. Yet only 20 percent of the world’s largest companies currently have business continuity plans that are effective enough to ensure the likelihood of surviving one.
A Plan of Action
The most important step businesses can take is to develop a sound disaster recovery plan. A business protection plan offers a blueprint for survival. So, whether a disaster strikes or not, there is value from the perspective of arming an organization to be more reliable and accessible.
Before this “plan of action” can even be developed, a corporate culture that holds disaster preparedness as a high priority must be established, since the actual plan will require intense and accurate scrutiny of existing business processes. This scrutiny will culminate in the cataloging and inventorying of every single business function and/or process in an organization (each of which indirectly corresponds to a software application). This horizontal recovery strategy by business function ensures successful incremental recoverability in the event of a disaster.
Once all functions are understood and recognized, consensus will need to be secured in order to determine the recovery order of each business function. For example, which function is most important to the organization? Which is second-most important? Metrics typically used to assess the function’s priority include the importance of availability of the data, how critical the data is, the sensitivity of the data, and the confidentiality of the data to both the company and its customers. This hierarchy of priorities will be vital in determining the company’s needs for how quickly that function must be restored and how much data the company can afford to lose for that function.
Finally, a cost impact analysis comparing possible recovery strategies, such as mirrored, hot site or cold site, can assist an organization in understanding the financial implications of its disaster recovery strategy. The impact analysis should take into account each recovery strategy’s relative hardware costs, shipping costs, testing costs, travel expenses and contract costs. Once the organization understands the cost to perform each recovery strategy it will be easy to determine which strategy should be matched to each business function in that organization. Ultimately, this plan is going to be a test on the company’s commitment and dedication to being protected.
In addition to a disaster recovery plan, it is important also to incorporate data archiving, WAN planning, phone systems and physical workplace recovery into business protection strategies in the following ways:
Data Storage Solutions
With the emergence of federal regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley and HIPAA, data archival and retrieval has become one of the most critical components of a company’s IT initiatives. Organizations must have access to data, even in the event of a disaster, so it is imperative that the organization select the appropriate solution to protect internal corporate, customer and employee data. Dedicated storage, backup, restore and archival services will allow the organization to protect your business from revenue loss due to downtime, corruption and loss of data.
The Network
Many companies try to protect their networks by using more than one vendor, hoping that carrier diversity offers increased security. But since most carriers’ lines traverse the same stretches of land, a catastrophe occurring in one of these locations likely will affect several vendors.
Adding network diversity through a single carrier instead offers greater protection. For example, if an organization uses a domestic private line, using a network with route, ring and single-circuit diversity will make its network less vulnerable than a network that features just one or two of these enhancements.
Phone Systems and Call Centers
Another consideration is the protection of the phone systems and call center solutions. For added protection, an organization may want to consider VoIP as an alternative to traditional phone systems. VoIP infrastructure can be hosted at the provider’s location instead of on the organization’s premises; therefore, should the organization’s corporate location be compromised in the event of a disaster, the phones remain operational. Likewise, call center solutions such as call routing and integrated voice recognition also should be hosted by the provider offsite. Call routing solutions are another option that can be effective in a worst-case scenario by offering the ability to re-route calls to employees’ homes should the office location be compromised.
Protecting the Workplace
Protecting data, network, phone systems and call centers in the case of disaster is critical – but none of these things will be enough if employees don’t have a place to work. A mobile office unit, onsite within 24 hours, is ideal for a business requiring a location to house critical employees and resources in the event of a disaster. These units are fully functioning office environments, complete with desks, chairs, workstations, printers, fax machines, satellite connectivity for voice and data, and power generators.
In addition, a multifaceted remote access solution is critical to provide employees with Internet access and secure connectivity to the corporate network in disaster situations that may keep them from reaching the office.
A Sense of Security
A business protection strategy is like an insurance policy. Businesses hope they never need to use it, but it’s a lifesaver should a disaster strike.
Laurel Burton is senior product manager of disaster recovery and managed services at Qwest Communications International Inc.
For more information on disaster recovery, please look for xchange’s upcoming special supplement on Disaster Recovery this spring.
Qwest Communications International Inc. www.qwest.com
