If you listed every single risk that could throw your organization into disaster recovery mode, you would be burning the midnight oil for a week. Mind you, you probably wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway from the worry of trying to figure out how on earth to deal with such risks. A better approach is to eliminate some of the worry. Read more
Once upon a time, the software code was the only thing that mattered. Everything else was added as an afterthought, including testing (of any description), integration, security, and considerations like IT disaster recovery. Now, enlightenment is slowly spreading through the coding community. It started with testing and integration. Read more
Rather like the progression of the primate to primitive human and thence to homo sapiens, some industry pundits are now pushing this latest development in the disaster recovery chain of evolution: IT service continuity management. Whether this new concept adds much value remains to be seen, but it has the merit of being simple. Read more
If your IT systems fail, break or go up in smoke, your IT sourcing strategy could determine how fast your business can recover. It’s worth considering the different options available when you renew or build out your IT installations. Read more
In theory, disaster recovery planning and management are what every self-respecting organization should practice. Restoring systems, databases, and networks – and more importantly, IT-enabled business functionality – after an incident is one of the highest priorities for most enterprises, so dependent on their IT to carry out their daily activities. The problem is that too many organizations do not know, in real terms, what they should be recovering. Read more
A branch office, by definition, is not a company’s headquarters. As all the really important data, information and systems are likely to be concentrated at headquarters, disaster recovery efforts are likely to be focused on that part of the company too. By comparison, branch offices are more tactical than strategic. Read more
Whether or not disaster recovery improves things for your organization depends, naturally enough, on your reference point. When systems have stopped and productivity is at zero, perhaps any change brought about by enacting a DR procedure would be a good one. Read more
IT incidents are in general best put right quickly. Performance in this area can be tracked as MTTR, or mean time to repair. As a metric, MTTR has its advantages. One of these is that it is simple to handle. Read more
Ever since Marc Andreessen declared that software is eating the world, IT’s appetite for transforming the physical into the virtual has carried on unabated. The Internet has created massive amounts of new business. Read more
There is a tendency to believe that once disaster recovery measures have been taken and systems brought back into operation, a disaster recovery manager’s job is done (apart from planning and preparing for future incidents). However, much like patients leaving hospital after an operation, vigilance is crucial. Complications and relapses can happen unexpectedly. Vulnerabilities can be created unintentionally Read more