Building a secure, reliable and resilient IT infrastructure is only one facet of business continuity (BC). In addition to disaster recovery (DR), risk management and security elements, a well-defined BC strategy should also include components from facilities management, supply chain management, crisis management and communications, health and safety, quality management and knowledge management.

This was the uptake at the Security and Continuity Conference 2005 'Fail to Plan Vs Plan to Fail Keeping Your Enterprise Secure and Continuous', which is being organized by IDC.

Speaking on the occasion, HP Asia/Pacific HP Management Services Senior Technology Consultant, Paul Marshal said, "BC is a way of doing business that ensures the infrastructure has the ability to maintain operations in the event of a significant adverse event (physical calamity, sabotage, natural disaster)." However, he added that risks such as power/network failure, people or process error, application failure should not be discounted as they can also lead to risk and downtime.

Impact of risk is the cost of downtime, which could directly affect financials and customers and damage a company´s reputation. Indirect impact of risk could be more severe and unpredictable. According to Paul, companies need to address risk and downtime by combining people, process and technology to achieve best practices across the disciplines of availability, security and business continuity.

Shedding light on the evolution of business continuity and availability (BC&A), Paul said that it has moved from DR in 70s/80s to business recovery in the 90s and BC&A since 2000. He added, "A company should identify threats, understand risks and control the risks by taking proactive measures."

Speaking on business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR), IDC Asia/Pacific Asia Pacific Software Group Senior Analyst, Vivian Tero said that BC is not always affected by catastrophe but by anything that disturbs the normal working of an organization. She added that normally people confuse back up and archive solutions as BCDR, but this is not so. Top three threats to a business include introduction of virus, corruption if data and external hacking.

CYBERMEDIA NEWS

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