| With the recently announced cancellation of the | | | | need for business continuity plans and related |
| Business Continuity Expo 2009 by Reed | | | | insurance strategies. In reality, during such times, |
| Exhibitions, it is clear that service providers | | | | the organisation may be able to recover from the |
| expect UK businesses to scale back their budgets | | | | impact of a couple of days IT downtime. Sure, |
| for disaster recovery and business continuity | | | | some customers will switch to your competitors, |
| provision. It seems that while some firms have | | | | some of those will never come back, but your |
| decided to take the risk of not having a plan at all, | | | | order book, and cashflow will be strong enough to |
| others are trying to find shortcuts to reduce their | | | | carry the business through. In contrast, during a |
| spending. By far the most obvious piece of the | | | | recession, when order books are small, and |
| jigsaw to remove, for most businesses, are the | | | | cashflow is tight, the same period of IT |
| test invocations. | | | | downtime, and resultant loss of business, could be |
| Test invocations form a crucial part of all disaster | | | | enough to break the camel's back. Hence, |
| recovery plans, but often it is the most | | | | economic recession makes a working business |
| expensive component of the solution. Test | | | | continuity plan even more crucial. |
| invocations are frequently overlooked at the | | | | Some service providers have engaged with their |
| outset of a business continuity plan, as service | | | | customers to find a solution to this dichotomy. It |
| providers and manufacturers proclaim 'ease of | | | | is possible, given the right approach, to leave the |
| recovery'. Only when the first test is carried out | | | | invocation process to the service provider. The |
| does the extent of the hidden costs become | | | | service provider maintains a detailed |
| apparent. Even simple tape restore testing can be | | | | documentation process, and provides both the |
| time consuming and therefore expensive (and | | | | equipment and the manpower to invoke the |
| often outside the desired Recovery Time | | | | solution independently, with no impact on the |
| Objective or RTO). Worse still, if the test fails, | | | | client's live running IT operation, or the team |
| further staff time must be dedicated to | | | | supporting it. Once the solution is fully invoked, the |
| investigation and documentation updates. When | | | | business can carry out specific application tests, |
| job losses are on the horizon, and teams are | | | | before leaving the service provider to dismantle |
| running on empty, just sparing the staff to fulfil | | | | the invocation test again, and update the |
| the project may not be an option. | | | | documentation. |
| Some DR processes have an even higher cost | | | | This sounds like a shift to wholly outsourcing the |
| due to bad design, and can only be carried out at | | | | disaster recovery solution to a service provider, |
| the expense of uptime. Physical servers | | | | and it is. It also sounds very expensive, but it isn't. |
| sometimes need to be moved, or shutdown to | | | | Recovery teams at managed service providers, |
| carry out all the environment or application testing. | | | | perform test invocations every day of the year. |
| Some business continuity advisors get it right and | | | | Fortunately live invocations are rare, but test |
| ask service providers to 'bundle' test invocations | | | | invocations happen on a regular basis. Because the |
| into the service contract. That is fine as far as it | | | | test invocation is a routine action, and often highly |
| goes, but it generally does not account for the | | | | automated, the costs are kept small, and more |
| hidden costs like resource, transport, and | | | | importantly, included in the contract. With |
| documentation updates. | | | | contracts available in the market for around |
| It seems fair then to reduce or postpone test | | | | £50/week for a server with 60GB of data, |
| invocations as part of a budget cutting directive, | | | | and an achievable Recovery Point Objective |
| but at what cost? When times are good, and | | | | (RPO) of near zero, why would you do it |
| business is booming, cashflow is rarely a problem. | | | | yourself? |
| IT budgets increase as stakeholders recognise the | | | | |