Complex, unfamiliar tasks are made easier when one has a
rigorous step-by-step map to follow. Any artistically
challenged person who has ever used a Paint by Numbers
kit is familiar with this concept. And Paint by
Numbers is a good analogy for the way to approach Disaster
Recovery (DR) planning, preparedness and
execution.
In most organisations, DR is
the quintessential complex, unfamiliar task. Disasters
happen so rarely that recovery operations are the opposite
of routine. What's more the myriad, interconnected
data, application and other resources that must be
recovered after a disaster make recovery an
exceptionally difficult and error-prone effort.
Before you ever encounter a
disaster-something that everyone devoutly hopes will
never happen-careful disaster-preparedness analysis, planning
and implementation are required to ensure that
recovery will be achievable and as painless as
possible should the worst happen. This extensive
pre-disaster groundwork is at least as important as
the recovery tasks themselves because the last things
you want to learn after a disaster occurs is that the backup
data and resources necessary to complete a full recovery of
the business are unavailable or that you and your IT
staff do not know how to perform the recovery
processes.
However, today's IT
environments are almost unimaginably complex, making
DR failure seem almost inevitable. Terabytes of data may be
stored in myriad elaborate data stores. The business
may depend on millions of lines of computer code,
within the hundreds or thousands of modules included
within or called by several applications. And a complex web
of interconnected hardware-servers, data storage
devices, desktop computers, network gear, and more-is
required to keep those applications running.
In the face of this enormous
complexity, where should you begin and how should you
proceed to develop your DR plans and put in place the
DR infrastructure required to protect your business against
the effects of a disaster? Their intricacy and number
make the required tasks appear unfathomable. And the
possibly of a business-stopping omission of some
critical details seems inevitable.
To discuss your business
continuity needs - contact GCC innova here