In a time where companies are plagued by numerous business continuity challenges, the management of risk has become a crucial consideration with little time for debate or validation, says Andre Hurter, manager of storage software products at Drive Control Corporation (DCC).
"The reality is SA businesses have to act now to protect their valuable organisational assets, putting in place the proper systems for managing risk while also understanding how it fits into their overall disaster recovery (DR) and business continuity efforts," he says.
Firstly, he advises, it is important to understand the types of risks and how they can be mitigated. "For example, the loss of data can be caused by numerous factors that include IT failure, power outages, flooding, fire and other natural disasters," he says. "Thus, a good place to start is to establish an organisational risk profile."
The next logical step, says Hurter, is to establish a recovery time objective and ask, 'how quickly should data my data be recovered?'.
Companies should also keep in mind a recovery point objective, says Hurter, and to ask 'how much data do I need to restore to become effective again?'.
Team work
According to Hurter, it is also important that the IT department does not make risk management decisions on its own. "The IT department might not understand the full impact of business issues, which is why the executive team must be involved in the procurement and execution of strategies. Top to bottom buy-in is crucial," he says.
Furthermore, says Hurter, good communications and training plans must be put in place to ensure that staff understand the rationale behind backups and why it is important to adhere to policies and procedures that relate to it.
"Lastly, access control and audit trails also form an important part in risk management processes," he says.
Hurter concludes, "Arguably, the most important step is testing. It is recommended that companies do regular, scheduled DR testing of critical systems. This will enable these companies to ensure they are able to recover data in the event of data loss."
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