The following is a summary of the status updates and actions in preparing for the Recovery Phase and addressing new risks which have been identified since the COVID-19 Pandemic outbreak.  We have now entered into the Business Recovery Phase, which is estimated could now last until the end of the 2020 calendar year, and businesses need to know how to prepare…

More moving parts mean more chance of failure. Replace “moving parts” by “comatose IT servers” and the adage still holds true. You may be tempted to reply that 1) there aren’t many of this kind of server anyway, and that 2) comatose servers may not be doing any good, but as such they are not…

Most businesses experience change constantly. Markets, technologies, regulations and strategies all evolve. Enterprises that stand still get left behind and disappear, one way or another. While we have business continuity theories, principles and tools galore, it’s worth revisiting one of the most fundamental concepts from time to time – that of Darwin’s idea of evolution,…

It may sound strange to talk about “touchy-feely” stuff like user experience in the context of IT disaster recovery. After all, the priority is on getting systems up and running again within recovery time and recovery point objectives, rather than sitting around in focus groups discussing feelings and opinions. The only UX that many IT…

Few activities and operations are truly set it and forget it. Lights-out factories like the showcase installation run by technology company Siemens are proof of concept, but still the exception. Business continuity in most cases requires periodic adjustment because environments and conditions are constantly changing. However, here’s a thought that could change that. The idea…

Do more with less. Who hasn’t already heard that in business? And just because something – like disaster recovery planning and management – is vital to ensuring enterprise survival does not mean that you cannot leverage your investment to get more out of it. The more DRP and DRM can help you increase profits or…

The following is a summary of the status updates and actions in preparing for the Recovery Phase and addressing new risks which have been identified since the COVID-19 Pandemic outbreak.  We have now entered into the Business Recovery Phase, which is estimated could now last until the end of the 2020 calendar year, and businesses…

More moving parts mean more chance of failure. Replace “moving parts” by “comatose IT servers” and the adage still holds true.

The enemy is (largely) within, when it comes to the security of information and information systems. Knowing how and why insider threats materialise is a big step towards dealing with them.

Most businesses experience change constantly. Markets, technologies, regulations and strategies all evolve. Enterprises that stand still get left behind and disappear, one way or another.

Proverbially at least, elephants never forget. Neither does the Internet. Once information is out there, you must assume it will always be out there, and that deleting it at its source may make no difference.

Few activities and operations are truly set it and forget it. Lights-out factories like the showcase installation run by technology company Siemens are proof of concept, but still the exception.

Do more with less. Who hasn’t already heard that in business? And just because something – like disaster recovery planning and management – is vital to ensuring enterprise survival does not mean that you cannot leverage your investment to get more out of it.

It may sound strange to talk about “touchy-feely” stuff like user experience in the context of IT disaster recovery. After all, the priority is on getting systems up and running again within recovery time and recovery point objectives, rather than sitting around in focus groups discussing feelings and opinions.

IT service management changed a few years ago with the introduction of containers. They helped usher in the concept that a data centre was no longer a place with computers, but that the data centre itself was the computer.

Time is money, as they say, and it is also a key factor in IT disaster recovery. Take, for instance, the well-known recovery time objective or RTO, which defines how fast you should get back to normal operations after an IT incident.

Imagine taking your car to the garage for an urgent repair, only to be told that you’ll have to wait for week because the garage mechanics are off on a training course.

Military precision? Business descriptions? No fluff? All these qualifications have a bearing on a disaster recovery plan, but with certain conditions.

We may live in a digital age, but much of the concepts from the previous industrial era still carries through. We have virtual cloud data factories and production lines, just like their physical counterparts for making cars, furniture, aircraft and so on.

The bigger an organisation gets, the more the plans multiply. There may be plans for dealing with contingencies, crises, disasters, emergencies, pandemics, risks and who knows what else, all in addition to your business continuity plan.