Information networks provide the core functionality and business processes that support, enhance, and produce business profits. A recent study revealed that over 83% of today’s businesses and organizations are not properly prepared in the event of a natural or man-made disaster. Over burdened and financially strapped IT departments are constantly seeking ways to lower costs and yet continue to deliver a high level of services. With such a high level of projected shortcomings, it is estimated that out of the 83% of organizations that are not properly prepared, less than 15% would survive an actual disaster with the remaining going out of business within a year’s time. Being properly prepared for a disaster entails more than just having a backup plan; which is where many mid-size and larger IT departments fail. When asked by senior management if network resources are safe, the common response: “We have a backup”.

Business Continuity verses Backup and Recovery

When speaking with IT management teams, the discussion of managing regularly scheduled backups and archiving the information off site is often a very straight forward conversation. Many mid-size and some enterprise level IT managers understand the importance of having an aggressive backup plan in place, but many do not consider the risks involved during a critical outage. For example, having the world’s best backup and recovery plan in place will mean little if anything if it requires a week to restore the information—for most organizations, being non-operational for a week would spell a complete financial disaster.

For the purposes of our discussion, we define the differences between a backup and continuity plan below:

·         Business Continuity is the process of ensuring that operations will continue in the event of a natural or man-made disaster.

·         Backup and Recovery ensures information lost or destroyed can be restored within a pre-defined period of time.

A Sense of Urgency

Without understanding and respecting the ever present possibility of a major local or regional disaster, IT departments are running the risk of a complete financial disaster for the organization that could occur at any given moment. It is important to locate, identify, and resolve any weaknesses within the infrastructure long before such a catastrophe take place. When s catastrophe of the magnitude in which we are concerned, its important for IT to know how and when to react, what the necessary steps are to keep the company running, and the processes in place that address these occasions.

 Planning for continuity is not just an IT responsibility—it’s a responsibility that is borne by all the organization. It is IT’s responsibility to make the organization aware of its vulnerabilities and to provide solutions that will mitigate losses during a catastrophe. It is management’s responsibility to accept the cost of taking a pre-emptive stance and to provide IT with the necessary financial and additional resources necessary to implement such a solution.

It is equally the responsibility of IT to identify and plan for any third-party failures that may affect the success of the company. Take for example the reliance an organization that is involved heavily in eCommerce or supply-chain management. What if? The primary provider’s systems were to fail? What if? Procurement and delivery of key products or services were to fail? What if? None of these failures were under the direct control of the organization itself or the IT department as a whole? What if? You are the major supplier in the chain and your outage would take two or three other organizations as a result? That’s an extreme amount of responsibility and it cannot be taken lightly. As you can see, business continuity and availability to resources is oftentimes beyond the organizations control, but it is still the organizations responsibility to develop, plan, and execute such a plan when necessary.

Constant changes require constant planning…

Information Technology departments that are progressive and pro-active will design a business continuity plan and “shelve” the process when it is needed. Without even so much as a minor test, IT will communicate to management they have the plan on standby, ready to implement at a given moment. When such a disaster occurs, it’s a little late to find out the off-site storage faculty was destroyed during the same earthquake, or that the offsite storage facility located clear across the country has your information but all telecommunications lines are down. Worse, the plan developed two years earlier is completely useless because IT processes and infrastructure has changed dramatically since its original creation.

Aggressive, expanding businesses also need to take into account the many changes that occur during a merger or an acquisition. There it goes—did you miss it? Your continuity plan just went out the window. The minute an acquisition takes place, IT management and staff should be immediately engaged, earlier if possible, in accessing the changes that are taking place and the importance of the new division. During these challenging times, its important to have a staff dedicated to all aspects of disaster recovery, backup planning, and business continuity. Engaging the experienced staff at Exiis Corporation during these times will provide relief to the current IT team whose natural, primary focus will be on accessing the infrastructure they are inheriting and how they can best leverage their services.

A Responsible Top-Down Approach

Many business executives and top management believe IT business continuity planning is the sole responsibility of the IT department. When IT managers approach financial officers and CEOs with proposed changes and increases in equipment requests, many of these managers and executive simply don’t understand the end-impact that will occur if they continue to with hold funding for mission-critical hardware and software solutions.

Business continuity must begin at the top of the organization with buy-in from executives and senior management. Many of the organizations upper management consider business continuity as something totally different from the IT departments concern. Management looks at other factors such as business plants remaining operational, financial resources remaining fluid, and supply-chain partners remaining productive and delivering products the company rely on for success. It is up to the IT department to re-focus and make aware to upper management just how important the information technology backbone is to the day-to-day success of the organization. Once upper management and IT have forged an alliance and have dedicated resources to ensuring IT continuity continues, the organization is well on its way to developing a comprehensive and complete business continuity plan.

Many organizations will form an advisory board dedicated to business continuity, where outside subject matter experts such as hardware vendors, software vendors, and outsourced consultants will participate closely with members of the team. The ultimate goal of these panels is to tightly integrate all aspects of the organization to discuss the impact a disaster will have on each part of the organizations operations, from production to operations—manufacturing to sales. Advisory boards are an excellent source of information, discovery, and planning resources that improve the over-all survivable changes of an organization during unforeseen and unplanned disasters.