Disaster avoidance is often used in conjunction with disaster recovery and
business continuity planning. Cloud computing solutions help businesses mitigate
losses during disaster and focuses on prevention rather than reaction. Cloud
computing guarantees companies 100 percent uptime. Full-time IT staff members
are on-call monitoring for potential threats to applications and data hosted
within the cloud. Once a data breach is detected, IT professionals can contain
the breach without any business interruption. Disaster avoidance protects
against sabotage, hacking, data theft and other IT related disasters.
Natural and external disasters are not avoidable. Companies can relocate to
areas to minimize the risk of these events occurring, but these factors are more
difficult to control. Businesses located in New York during the traumatic events
of September 11, 2001 are aware of the inadequacies of business continuity
plans. After the events, businesses were forced to re-evaluate how to prepare
for fast resumption of business even during times of immense crisis such as
terrorism.
Which Topics Should Be Addressed in Disaster Recovery Planning?
Mission critical applications must be identified as a part of any disaster
recovery solution. Mission critical applications will be restored first in
business continuity plans. Applications will be ranked and prioritized according
to what is necessary to keep business operational during disasters. Important
applications include phone lines, virtual PBX systems and customer relationship
management (CRM) applications.
Businesses with virtual PBX systems will be concerned about connectivity. WAN
or LAN connectivity is of major concern during crisis events such as
earthquakes, terrorism or floods. If the lines are cut for any reason,
businesses should be prepared to resume business quickly. When WAN or LAN
connectivity is lost, businesses are at a significant disadvantage.
Some businesses prepare by using virtual PBX systems with call forwarding to
cellular phones and applications which are hosted in virtual environments rather
than on local computers or services. Data in virtual environments is easily
accessible and can be accessed from web-based applications. Employees can go to
any computer terminal with Internet access and a web browser to resume business
operations. Business continuity plans often include virtual solutions for this
reason.
Data storage of any type is of concern. Business continuity depends upon the
ability of the business to retrieve data fast. Any data required to continue
normal business operations should be included in a virtual environment for easy
access during disaster. Employees must know where to go to or what actions to
perform to ensure efficient business resumption.
Disaster
recovery is essential to any businesses survival. Planning is recommended to
reduce business interruption times and maintain professionalism during disaster.
Professional business continuity planners can help devise comprehensive plans
for recovery. |
