Managed It Services Spotlight Business Continuity And Disaster Recovery

In information technology, as in life, you must be prepared for the unexpected

. Ensuring your business has the proper business continuity and disaster recovery plans in place is critical to ensure your business and clients are unaffected by the unexpected. These plans are like an extra insurance policy for your business. Yes, they are an additional expense and you hope you never have to put them into action, but if you dont have one and you need it

What is a Business Continuity Plan?

A business continuity plan covers all aspects of your business. Everything from your businesses facilities to personnel are included. It is an important point to note that business continuity planning does not just cover the technology side of your business. The plan outlines how your business will continue to operate, and recover, in the event of a disaster. Here in Florida, the importance of a business continuity plan in preparation for hurricane season is a perfect example. In 2004, many Central Florida businesses learned this lesson the hard way. Due to the multiple hurricanes that came through Central Florida, there were wide-spread power outages that lasted several weeks in some areas; communication outages including cellular, internet and analog phone services; and damage to roads, buildings and other important infrastructure. Some businesses never recovered, while others faced downtime and outages of several weeks.

What is a Disaster Recovery Plan?

A proper disaster recovery plan is an integral part of your business continuity plan. It generally focuses on the IT portion of your business ensuring your business is able to recover and continue to operate software, hardware and access data in unforeseen conditions. Since every business is different, a disaster recovery plan is unique depending upon your businesses requirements. A disaster recovery plan is critical to have in place not only in the event of natural disasters such as hurricanes, earthquakes, and fires but also man-made ones such as hardware failure, communication outages and loss of key personnel. Our Managed IT services can provide both physical and virtual solutions to support your disaster recovery efforts.

Your business may be prepared, but are your vendors?

A business can have both a business continuity and disaster recovery plan in place, but if the vendors you rely on for your business to operate do not, it wont matter. Many businesses rely on multiple vendors to provide critical services for them to function, and it is important to select the right vendor and establish proper service level agreements (SLA) based on your businesses needs. An SLA is an agreement between you and your vendor that outlines the excepted downtime that will affect your business. Often SLAs have a clause that allows you recoup financial losses due to downtime that exceeds your SLA.

Copyright (c) 2010 Karl Muhlbach

by: Karl Muhlbach

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