Disaster Recovery
Services
Disaster Recovery
services typically consists of things like conduct of the Business
Impact Analysis (BIA),
Risk Analysis, assistance in creating the Disaster Recovery
plan, conduct of a contingency audit, training, Service Level
Agreements and physical hosting.
Disaster Recovery
services – Physical hosting
The terrorist attacks
of September 11,
2001 have taught many businesses one thing: prepare for
the all types of disaster! Companies must take steps to make their
businesses less dependent on a single office or data infrastructure.
Consider implementing
technologies that can quickly duplicate company data at a remote
location. Two out of five businesses that experience a disaster the
magnitude of the World Trade Center attack will go out of
business within five years (Gartner).
These factors make it
more important than ever to either build a redundant IT facility, or
select an IT outsourcing service provider for disaster
recovery.
Disaster Recovery
services – 3 broad categories
Gradual Recovery
This option (sometimes
referred to as 'cold standby') is applicable to organizations that
do not need immediate restoration of business processes and can
function for a period of up to 72 hours, or longer, without a
re-establishment of full IT facilities.
This may include the
provision of empty accommodation fully equipped with power,
environmental controls and local network cabling Infrastructure,
telecommunications connections, and available in a disaster
situation for an organisation to install its own computer
equipment.
Intermediate Recovery
This option (sometimes
referred to as 'warm standby') is selected by organizations that
need to recover IT facilities within a predetermined time to prevent
impacts to the business process. This typically involves the
re-establishment of the critical systems and services within a 24 to
72 hour period.
Most common is the use
of commercial facilities, which are offered by third party recovery
organizations to a number of subscribers, spreading the cost across
those subscribers. Commercial facilities often include operation,
system management and technical support. The cost varies depending
on the facilities requested such as processors, peripherals,
communications, and how quickly the services must be restored
(invocation timescale).
Immediate Recovery
This option (sometimes
referred to as 'hot standby') provides for immediate restoration of
services and is usually provided as an extension to the intermediate
recovery provided by a third party recovery provider.
The immediate recovery
is supported by the recovery of other critical business and support
areas during the first 24 hours following a service disruption.
Instances where immediate recovery may be required are where the
impact of loss of service has an immediate impact on the
organization’s ability to make money, such as a Bank's dealing
room.
