Is it Time to Rethink Your Business Continuity - Disaster Recovery Plan?

Have you been thinking about the need to update your Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery plan? You are not alone. According to recent research by The 451 Group disaster recovery planning is top of mind for the Enterprise and data replication is a top 2 storage initiative for IT organizations. Data replication has always been important but it was often seen as too expensive to implement. With virtualization technology data replication can be easier to implement than before and BC/DR is seen as a major motivator for implementing server virtualization. With virtualization in place you can replicate data at the Virtual Machine level. In many cases you can even put your database in a virtual machine. This makes it much easier to control the back up process and to keep track of your applications and data as well as to get them up and running at the new location.

Business Continuity is a Top Concern
It’s no wonder that BC/DR planning is getting more attention. We remember the outages and financial loss that occurred from disasters ranging from floods, to tornadoes and hurricanes to the tsunami in Japan. You have probably seen the statistics warning that 75% without business continuity plans fail within three years of a disaster, and 43% with no emergency plan never reopen. Government regulations have also dramatically increased the Data Replication and compliance requirements. These situations have increased the awareness of the need to maintain productivity within a company, sustain value chain relationships, deliver continued services to customers and partners, all of which can be difficult if we are moving applications and user connections to a new data center location.