January 16, 2004—Evergreen Assurance has developed a recommended disaster prevention strategy that organizations can implement to protect their business-critical systems in 2004, in case of such natural and man-made disasters as power outages, hurricanes, and computer viruses.
According to Evergreen Assurance, disaster prevention is an emerging model that “turns traditional reactionary disaster recovery plans on their head.” By proactively preventing disasters before they paralyze a business, Evergreen says companies can save time and money and maintain a business-as-usual environment regardless of the nature of the crisis.
Evergreen Assurance’s disaster recovery experts have outlined the following six tips that businesses should heed in 2004:
- Redefine Disaster—for businesses today, a disaster is any event that blocks access to corporate data and applications. Look for solutions that help businesses recover from all types of IT downtime. Take the end-user perspective and minimize both planned and unplanned downtime for the company. Up to 90 percent of a company’s downtime is planned, so invest in a secondary system that keeps the end-user connected to applications and data and minimizes disruptions.
- Prioritize Applications—every company has specific applications that are mission-critical to keeping the business up and running. Typical candidates for most businesses include e-mail and ERP systems. By prioritizing your applications, you can allocate your IT budget appropriately and protect what is most important to your company instead of spreading that budget across non-critical applications.
- Web-enable Applications— whenever possible, Web-enable mission- critical applications so employees can access them anywhere, anytime. In the event of a disaster that prevents staff from entering the office, Web-enabled applications allow your employees, customers, and partners to stay connected.
- Move Data 100 Miles From Primary Site—in preparation for regional disasters, keep your data at least 100 miles from your primary site. You should also replicate your data continuously to maintain complete data integrity.
- Automate Recovery Process—whenever possible, automate disaster recovery processes to reduce bottlenecks and human error. By streamlining the process, you can reduce business costs by decreasing downtime and allowing faster recovery from unavoidable disaster-related outages.
- Retain Control—by bringing your disaster recovery process in-house, you can monitor, manage and failover your own system whenever any problem arises. This ensures faster recovery, better results, increased ROI and less dependency on shared resources provided by traditional DR vendors.
Evergreen Assurance says its easy-to-use Disaster Recovery Management System (DRMS) protects companies from costly downtime by providing them with complete control over the recovery process. Evergreen customers can failover to Evergreen or their own dedicated secondary environment as often as needed by pushing a button on a Web-based console. The process is simple enough that Evergreen customers are encouraged to use the secondary system for planned downtime, such as routine maintenance, so as not to disrupt employee communications and productivity.
Evergreen’s DRMS also includes predictive degenerative analysis that detects and helps prevent impending IT system failures before they occur. The company’s customer roster includes Air Cargo, Inc., American Federation of Teachers, Blue Chip Venture Company, Forbes.com, and the International Monetary Fund. For more information or to view an Evergreen DRMS demo, visit Evergreen.
