PLANNING ISSUES
Best Laid Plans in Recovery Program Delivery By JEFF GARRISON
Shoot for the stars. Aim for the moon. Settle for lift off. This chain of events is all too common when it comes to delivery of an organi- zation’s business continuity and
disaster recovery (BC/DR) programs.
Like an insurance policy or the time
honored “save for a rainy day” sugar bowl
of cash, investing in BC/DR programs may
not be an appealing option for an organization to spend its hard earned money on.
BC/DR programs do not generate revenue and may not visibly demonstrate an
upward turn in operational efficiency.
In short, a BC/DR program does not
appear to bring value to an organization,
until of course tragedy strikes such as a
disastrous event (natural, man-caused,
malicious attack upon the organization, to
name a few), bringing the organization to
the point of failure. At that point, the true
value of a well built, reliable, BC/DR program is self-evident.
The strength and effectiveness of BC/
DR program may end up being the separating thread between success and failure with
regards to whether an organization can fully
return to its pre-event level of operations.
The opinion has been voiced that a BC/DR program may reach a level of steady state-maintenance
mode. Is this a realistic point of arrival, a utopian ideal?
Are we speaking the same
language?
Having a strong BC/DR program is
crucial to the protection of an organization
when tragedy strikes. Today more than
ever, a strong, reliable, spend-smart BC/
DR program can be developed fitting the
budget of an organization; however, does
the implemented BC/DR program fully fit
the recovery and continuity needs of the
organization?
Often times, a service provider specializing in the delivery of recovery solutions,
such as virtualization, cloud technology,
hosted or managed solutions, or recovery
services, will deliver to a customer a solid
technology solution to support the customer’s BC/DR program. The customer
may believe the solution is an all-encom-passing, one-stop shopping turnkey solution to address all of their BC/DR needs.
The customer will believe this because the
solution provider is an industry leader who
specializes in delivering solutions. The
solution provider may believe their work
is done; that they have delivered solid
equipment and services fitting the exact
needs of what the customer asked for and
what the customer fully needs for their
BC/DR program. The truth is somewhere
in between.
On the side of the organization, a full
operational analysis of where they are at
and what they need may not have been
performed. Requirements delivered to
the solution provider may only address
DR-based needs such as system recovery,
use of virtualization, hosted solutions, and
an inventory of hardware and storage to
be replicated to a DR environment. What
may be missing is an identification of crit-
ical systems requiring recovery, depen-
dent systems requiring critical recovery,
an understanding of recovery time and
recovery point objectives (RTO, RPO) in
relation to critical business needs, non-
hosted or non-replicated systems still
requiring recovery, as well as if-needed
business critical incidentals such as off-
site workspace, phones, and other equip-
ment.
