Disaster-recovery planning is one of those chores that's like paying bills: You don't exactly want to sit down and deal with it, but you know things could get bad really fast if you don't. It's not just security from viruses and worms that's behind the need for recovery planning, either; productivity losses from such events as last summer's blackout in the Northeast and the California wildfires were well into the billions of dollars.
Those events weren't lost on IT planners. A recent InformationWeek survey found that 75 percent of IT executives listed business continuity as a primary concern, nearly 10 percent more than the survey had found a year earlier. Although cost, as ever, is a concern, the distributed structure of modern networks and the increasingly heterogeneous approach of storage vendors should make it easier to bite the recovery bullet. In any case, survey respondents feel that staying ahead of a business outage is worthwhile; 60 percent plan to begin risk-assessment checks to nip recovery problems in the bud.
In fact, storage firms continue to respond to the market need for disaster-recovery tools with a host of options. Network Computing put together a hypothetical test case for a disaster plan, invited responses, and was offered options that included data replication at the hardware level, replication via host software, and replication in a network. Your enterprise's particular needs should drive which path you take--but make sure to take one. After all, you shouldn't have to dread turning on the Weather Channel in the morning.
Enterprises Prepare For The Unexpected
Companies caught unprepared for operational outages in 2003 know they must focus on business continuity this year.
Disaster Recovery Planning: Data At Risk
At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what you call it, it all means the same thing: Avoid preventable interruptions and develop strategies to cope with those you can't prevent.
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