DR Analysis

Increasing Threats to Business Continuity

The media increasingly makes us aware of the threat to our economic stability with the news carrying stories of the latest virus targeting both domestic and business computer systems through to the now ever present risk of terrorist activities. Included in the mix is the changing environment and the increasing likelihood of damage through natural activities such as hurricanes and flooding.

Coupled with the dangers of fire, power outages, denial of service attacks, hacking, vandalism, in-house errors from staff, system failures (hardware and application), it seems there is an endless array of scenarios that can result in costly downtime for any business.

The lead up to New Year's Eve 2000 saw IT managers and company executives focus more intently than previously on the restoration of every aspect of business activity in the event of unexpected downtime. It isn't enough to ensure vital data is backed up to separate locations, but business systems, staff procedures and communications need to be maintained and as such disaster recovery procedures and systems should be installed as part of any recovery strategy.

Risk Management

Business needs to review essential procedures and systems for any weaknesses and failure points, subsequently developing strategies for recovery from failure. Most businesses will already be backing up important data to one or more secure off-site locations, but often equally important areas such as phone systems are overlooked. A comprehensive DR system for your phone network is essential in maintaining staff-to-staff and staff-to-client communications and can be instrumental in maintaining workflow and staff movements during the recovery period.

Data and procedural recovery times can be quantified and acceptable limits decided upon as risk assessment proceeds, but any downtime beyond a few minutes with your communications can prove extremely costly. Failures that affect communications tend to err on the lengthy side, with natural disasters and most malicious attacks resulting in hours offline at the least, but often restoration of services can take a day or two. Imagine not being able to take any calls for a couple of days - what will be the affect on your business both in terms of staff morale and customer frustration, plus the loss of new business.

While developing a risk management plan likely areas of service interruption need to be identified and levels of impact assessed. Once identified, failure points need to be classified into categories relevant to your business circumstance, for example is the threat natural or man made, or is it in-house or external.

Once all possible scenarios are identified and impact determined, options for incident recovery need to be investigated while budgetary requirements are taken into account. With a large number of DR applications available for all areas of business it's important that all potential suppliers be scrutinized for sufficient diversity and redundancy in their networks plus having comprehensive and well tested contingency plans.

Incident Impact Analysis

When assigning budgets to different areas of business continuity planning, incident impact needs to be evaluated with mission critical systems taking priority and consequently the larger share of the budget. Individual DR needs will be company specific, with data recovery usually taking precedence as data loss can have catastrophic consequences given any loss of data will prove costly and time consuming to restore, if even possible. Telecom recovery should also be prioritized as the costs to business are not only immediate with lost enquiries, but long term when reputation and client approval are taken into consideration.

Where business continuity is considered thoughtfully, risk management priorities can be quantified by assigning relative values to incident type and similarly with business impact. Once both are factored together a scale can be developed which will help management come to prudent decisions and consequently demonstrate to staff and customers alike that disaster recovery responsibilities are being taken seriously.

Disaster recovery provisions may be needed to meet legal, contractual or shareholder demands, but any business wishing to act responsibly to it's workforce and client base should include telecoms recovery in it's DR strategy.

Business Continuity Strategies

Aside from data recovery other areas where DR needs to be considered include personnel, customer service and public relations all of which can be integrated into a telecoms redundancy strategy. A comprehensive telecoms DR application will include the ability to keep staff in contact with each other and with customers. Supervisors will be aware of the movements of personnel and good reporting will provide real time information and feedback. Customer service can be maintained by the relevant staff and public relations can be directed to voice noticeboard if preferred to reduce the demands on key personnel.

The aim of any business continuity plan is to ensure business continues despite any disaster and subsequent downtime. Through well developed risk analysis business can be prepared for most possibilities and minimize any disruption due to unexpected emergencies. Consider all likely, and even unlikely possibilities, assign levels of importance, determine budgets, seek out resilient DR options, train staff to handle emergencies and enjoy improved peace of mind.