Four Key Questions to Ask About BC and DR

Whether caused by a hurricane, a blackout or a terrorist attack, any power outage can wreak havoc on a business’ IT systems – something that’s long been known in today’s enterprises. But given the recent aftermath of Katrina and Rita, do companies know the right questions to ask?

In an article on the Enterprise Systems website, IT expert Tim Rathbun examines the approaches for business continuity and disaster recovery to give his advice on what data-driven enterprises can do to ensure better business continuity in the event of a power outage.

Rathbun says that while both business continuity and disaster recovery have been a “must have” for today’s enterprises, not all of them have successful plans. To really have a successful DR plan, he says, you just need to ask yourself four key questions:

1. What data is most important to business operations?
2. How much downtime is acceptable without affecting the business?
3. How much data can be potentially lost in the event of a failure?
4. How long will it take to recover?

Rathbun also offers his advice on how to create a good DR plan that can withstand even a prolonged catastrophe like Katrina. That includes: standardizing on backup products, focusing on recovery, documenting procedures for backup operations and testing the recovery.

To read the full article, click here: http://www.esj.com/enterprise/article.aspx?EditorialsID=1509