2006 TechNO Expo

Christopher Taylor
President and CEO
Computer Integration Technologies, Inc.

In our experience, the degree of preparedness really depends on the type and size of the organization. Organizations in industries where regulations are present—such as financial and medical organizations—are much more likely to have business continuation and disaster recovery plans in place. In other types of organizations, we find that the level of preparedness varies greatly, from very basic business continuity plans to elaborate plans that encompass entire systems and companies.

We find that although an organization may have a disaster recovery plan in place for their technology, they have neglected to plan for what they would do if they couldn’t function as a business at all due to as disaster. Katrina is an extreme case, but it definitely showed us that if your building is destroyed by a flood or tornado, you have a host of variables to worry about, not just your technology. But having said that, all organizations should have off-site data backup; you can always rebuild a warehouse or purchase new inventory, but you can’t re-create lost data.

The hardest piece of business continuity to sell is complete redundancy, or a full duplication of a client’s current system. Generally, it is hard for clients to justify spending that kind of money on something that they have a small chance of utilizing. Unfortunately, it is not something most organizations are willing to take on, even though it would pay for itself many times over if it were actually used in a disaster. The other piece that is sometimes neglected in disaster recovery planning is testing the actual plan. Just this week, we are testing two of our clients’ plans. Testing will give them the reassurance that what they have planned will help them recover in the event of a disaster.