With many companies having already installed and tested contingency plans in anticipation of Y2K, it seems the next logical step is that of setting up Plan B - disaster recovery - just in case.
The loss of critical data is perhaps the most crushing blow a company could withstand. Indeed, many companies that have suffered similar blows never fully recovered. Of the 300 businesses affected by the World Trade Centre bombing in 1993, 260 had no recovery plan in place. Within a year, 150 of those companies had closed their doors.
Research undertaken last year by Safetynet, UK-based provider of disaster recovery and business continuity services, predicted that should a disaster strike an organisation without a tested plan, 40% will collapse outright. Of the rest, a further 40% will fail in 18 months and 12% in five years. On the whole, only 8% will survive in the long-term.
Into the breach steps the new breed of bounty hunters - disaster recovery specialists offering the promise of integrated business continuity solutions which enable the quick and cost-efficient recovery of crucial business functions.
One such organisation is the FirstRand-owned First Recovery. Based in Pretoria, First Recovery was founded in 1991 to provide disaster recovery (DR) services to the top tier of IBM-architectured mainframe companies in the country.
The company has since restructured and expanded its product offering to include the mid-range AS400 and RS6000 environment and HP 9000, Sun and Compaq`s Alpha client server markets, and more recently, office recovery products.
"Now, more than any time before, businesses need to be able to provide a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week service with little or no downtime," says First Recovery CEO Francois Muscat. "The cost of a current business continuity plan and a disaster recovery solution has become the cost of staying in business.
"A disaster can be defined as any event that significantly disrupts critical business processes, resulting in severe financial loss, an inability to achieve service levels, and embarrassment and loss of credibility for the company concerned," says Muscat.
In recent months, First Recovery has signed strategic partnership deals with Shadow Solutions (a member of Siltek`s Kunene Solutions & Services) PQ Africa and Compaq.
Continuity
According to First Recovery, a key element of the complete business recovery solution is a business continuity plan (BCP). The first step to a comprehensive BCP is a risk analysis/business impact analysis study, with the focus on IT systems, applications and a physical inspection of the client company`s IT infrastructure.
The analysis generates practical recommendations for problem resolution and forms the basis for subsequent DR and BCP policies.
Once a comprehensive DR plan is in place, the next requirement is a business resumption plan (BRP), to focus on the business processes that are dependent on the IT systems. The BRP documents how processes will function while the IT systems are being recovered and how the IT applications will be updated once the recovery is complete.
The First Recovery 24-hour emergency service includes standby "hot" and "cold" site facilities where critical business systems can be restored without any function being downgraded. Remote operations bridge facilities exist in the form of remote centres in Durban, Port Elizabeth and Cape Town.
The "hot" site is a fully equipped computer centre with environmental, backup, network, management and security facilities. A business client experiencing a disaster can run its systems here for up to two months.
Depending on the nature of the service provided, complete systems and services can reportedly be restored within hours. Another site in Midrand provides office recovery and can house up to 200 people.
There is also the option of electronic data vaulting; using the robotic tape systems set in place at the hot site, it is possible to electronically vault data across a network link from a customer site. Currently, the tapes are housed in storage silos, and are bar-coded to facilitate access. This means any one of up to 12 000 tapes can be accessed within 11 seconds.
Responsibility
Muscat elaborates on the significance of DR to company decision-makers: "Although people may be lulled into thinking that a disaster will never happen to their company, it is senior management`s responsibility to manage how the organisation will deal with disruptions to business. Those responsibilities, as detailed in the King report on corporate governance, include ensuring the organisation continues to function, accounting to shareholders and reporting on the viability of the business.
"Legislation and auditing practices around the world make it mandatory to adopt defensive measures and contingency arrangements to minimise both corporate and personal liability."
First Recovery aims to grow its client base by more than 150% by the end of next year, by expanding the scope of its services and partnership deals with IT vendors. Future service offerings will include data mirroring, call centre recovery and financial dealer desk recovery.
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