Hurricanes should prompt BC planning

The up in the number of hurricanes is a harsh reminder of the importance of having a business continuity (BC) plan, according to the US Institute for Business & Home Safety, writes PR Web.

As meteorologists predicted, this year's Atlantic hurricane season is producing a high number of hurricanes and tropical storms. Recently, Hurricane Earl, which grew to a category four status, brushed up the US East Coast.

“Small businesses are particularly vulnerable during disasters,” says Diana McClure, IBHS' business resiliency manager. “Statistics show that, of the small businesses that are forced to close due to a disaster, at least one in four never reopens.”

Informatica, independent provider of data integration software, has announced the general availability of Informatica PowerCenter dual load option for Teradata, reveals Inverstors.com.

This is said to deliver mission-critical BC for Teradata customers by enabling them to perform parallel data loads reliably into Teradata dual active systems with a unique ability to integrate with Teradata multi-system manager.

In today's global information economy customers demand 24/7 access to critical business data and analytics. Without this solution, Informatica says, any system outage or natural disaster could impact the continuous availability of real-time data demanded by Teradata customers.

BC and disaster recovery (DR) will be top priorities for organisations around the world in the next 12 months and spending on BC/DR will increase by about 5% for many businesses, according to the results of a new survey by Forrester Research, says CSO Online.

The survey of 2 803 IT decision-makers worldwide found improving BC/DR capabilities is the number one priority for small and medium enterprises and the second highest priority for enterprises.

The scope of BC/DR programmes is growing also, according to the research. Mature BC/DR programs now address all sources of downtime, including mundane power outages and weather-related disruptions, not just rare, catastrophic disasters, the research finds.