Data from a survey on continuity planning for IT services published in ComputerWorld magazine, issue 536, cites a global study conducted by a security company with 1.7 thousand managers in 2010 involving 18 countries, aimed at understanding the major hurdles for disaster recovery.
Results of the study on the continuity plan:
- 32% of virtual systems do not have regular backups.
- Only 1 in 4 respondents use replication technology for protection.
- 68% of virtual servers do not have disaster recovery plans.
- 51% of companies in Brazil state that backup procedures occur only semi-annually.
The data from this research opens the floor to discuss IT service continuity planning and, along with that, even primarily, business continuity planning. Understand more in the following text!
Contingency planning in the daily operations of companies
These data are at the very least curious and confirm a reality already perceived in the daily routine of companies; sometimes it seems a tragedy or disaster must happen to the company or nearby organizations before business continuity, and consequently IT, issues start to make it onto the discussion agenda.
A classic example is tragedies and natural disasters. Various companies—IT and others, public and private—had very little or no planning for continuity. Today the reality is a bit, mind you, a bit different. There are already continuity plans for cases of tragedies that help minimize business impacts.
The absence of a Business Continuity Plan (BCP) is often used as a justification for the absence of an IT service continuity plan. This justification has a certain foundation, as it is the company that will determine what is truly critical for the business and will guide what the expected availability for IT services should be. If the opposite occurs—IT service continuity based solely on IT—it can generate unnecessary costs and resource usage.
Continuity plan: IT vs. business
Therefore, there is no IT service continuity plan without a business continuity plan. It is also interesting at this point to mention the difference between availability management and service continuity. The former is concerned with keeping the service running in the best way possible for as long as possible, while continuity deals with recovery and continuity actions in case a disaster interrupts the availability of such services.
I believe the current moment for companies and our society is opportune for the development and validation of business continuity plans. As we increase our dependency on information technology services, we must increase our plans for the continuity of these services in the event of severe disruptions, which can, in many cases, decree the death of the company.
Source: By ITIL na Pratica
