103144 Resource 102302 102466 102466 1127442255738 1128355088867 Controlled Lessons of the Fall

Business Continuity for Small and Medium Companies is a luxury they must afford

We have been having thinderstorms all day today and the news online and on-air is all about Hurricane Rita. I managed to get out for an hour between downpours and reflect on some past experiences and current events. In the mid 90's I started working for Oracle and one of my first engagements was a Fortune 100 firm here in the greater Detroit area. I still remember a meeting that I attended where the company's Chief Data Architect (everyone at this company had a unique title because, as I found out later, each employee kind of created their own) met with the consulting team to go over the Failover, Disaster Recovery and Risk Mitigation deliverables. I was thoroughly impressed by the documents, not realizing that this was just a starting point.  When all was said and done there was two sets of servers, located several miles apart on different electrical grids. The system saves each transaction to one set of servers and mirrors the transaction to the other set. Then there were tape backups, stored offsite at a third location. And these examples are just the tip of the iceberg. This company took their data very seriously and were willing to go to great lengths to protect it. The assumption is that without a system their business comes to a screeching halt. Good assumption. Now, working with small and medium size firms I see the same need to protect the data, the same need for disaster recovery plans and risk mitigation. These companies are as tied to their data as any company. The business owners feel this need also.  The major difference is that small and medium size companies do not have the human bandwidth to stop and think about the issues of business continuity. Forget the required financial resources and physical limitations, these business people simply do not have the time for an IT Strategy. They just hope that disaster does not strike. Unfortunately, the way some of these firms operate they are only one stolen laptop away from disaster. I heard from one owner that his business was robbed and they walked out with his server. His whole business history gone in a smash and grab. Being the unflagging entrepreneurs that they are, SMB owners and managers pick up the pieces and carry on. But it does not have to be this way. Putting servers behind your brick walls does not mean security and risk mitigation. To the contrary, the best way to mitigate risk and plan for business continuity in the face of disaster is to get out of the IT business. It's not the strong point of SMB firms anyway, as they readily admit in an honest moment. There are now other options available to SMB firms. From Email to Web to CRM and ERP, there are a host of choices for software as a service. Helping SMBs develop a business continuity plan is no small undertaking. Just bringing up the issue sets you up as a scaremonger. But it's not long before the conversation becomes interesting and worthwile. Senior people do think about business continuity in passing, and given the opportunity they participate in planning enthusiastically. This is an issue that resonates with them, if you can get them to take the time to think about it strategically. 10 application/xml false business continuity disaster recovery it strategy on demand software software as a service Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0; T312461; YPC 3.0.1; (R1 1.5); .NET CLR 1.1.4322) 69.212.126.205 69.212.126.205 tfoydel false true false false true 205861 false false true false false false true 102302 blog blogsite/SightLines/web