Enterprises Turn to Business Continuity

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Enterprises Turn to Business Continuity
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By Rawlson O’Neil King
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From Web Hosting Monthly, December 2003 edition
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January 8, 2004 — (WEB HOST INDUSTRY
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REVIEW) — Over the last year, business continuity has emerged as one
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of the most important growth areas for outsourced infrastructure
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providers, and is becoming one of the most important considerations for
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large enterprise.
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Business continuity services provide
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corporations with the infrastructure necessary for physical and IT
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architecture recovery in case of a disaster.
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Comprehensive continuity services protect
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the assets, reputation and even the existence of a large enterprise if
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an emergency severely affects its operations. Managers have placed a
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high priority upon such services since the events of September 11. With
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the threat of domestic terrorism constantly looming within the United
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States, Europe and Asia, Fortune 500 companies have been enacting
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practices, processes and procedures that would prevent disruption from
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terrorism and natural disasters.
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Outsourced IT providers assist by
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offering specialized infrastructure that satisfies the continuity and
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recovery requirements of large businesses. Usually this infrastructure
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assumes the form of critical data backup and recovery services, which
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not only insure against terrorism, but against other more common
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occurrences such as hardware failure and data corruption. In addition
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to planning for catastrophic events, businesses are more commonly faced
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with every-day “disasters” like power failure, loss of communications
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connectivity, and financial problems of key vendors.
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Business continuity planning has become a
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high priority over the last year, as enterprises realize the full
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impact of downtime, which can cost millions of dollars each hour.
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According to Meta Group, business continuity capabilities are becoming
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more of a spending priority. Today, fewer than 25 percent of large
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enterprises have a business continuity plan in place. IDC however
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expects spending for IT security and business continuity to grow from
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$66 billion in 2001 to $155 billion in 2006.
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The interim result of a anonymous survey
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conducted by Continuity Central shows that the majority of IT managers
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expect to have a larger budget allocated to business continuity next
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year.
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The survey asked business continuity
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managers how much their respective companies spend on business
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continuity, what areas their budgets cover and whether their budgets
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will go up or down in 2004. The results so far show that 55 percent
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have a defined business continuity budget, while the remaining 45
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percent operate in a less formal spending regime. Sixty-nine percent of
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respondents expect their business continuity budgets to increase next
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year, 21 percent expect the budget to remain the same and 10 percent
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expect budget cuts.
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Service providers have begun positioning
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themselves to capture a portion of the continuity services arena. With
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new US federal regulations under review recommending that key
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industries incorporate out-of-region backup facilities for data and
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operations, it is only conceivable that business continuity services
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will continue to grow in necessity, and tangibly in deployment.
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A wide range of service providers and
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application developers did position themselves this year to participate
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in the space. ColoSpace (colospace.com),
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a provider of colocation, disaster recovery and managed services in New
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England, opened and market its newest facility as an IT continuity data
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center.
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The new data center allows businesses in
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the I-495/Route 9 Corridor, which includes the Worcester, MA,
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Providence, RI, and Hartford, CT areas to conveniently locate their
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network servers in a secured off-site location while retaining
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electronic access 24 x 7.
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The data center also allows its customers
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to gain access to “critical operations space” when they need it, for a
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monthly fee. Critical operations space allows enterprise customers to
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access a working, powered computer environment in the event of crisis
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such as a catastrophic incident or power outage.
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“ColoSpace’s goal is to provide New
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England companies with carrier class data center space, first class
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technical support and managed services to ensure clients can resume
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business operations quickly and seamlessly in the event of an
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unforeseen disruption of power or communications services,” said Wayne
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Sawchuk, president and CEO of ColoSpace. “Companies also require this
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highly reliable, quality service to off load peak development work
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which would otherwise impact critical day-to-day operations or to
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fulfil compliancy with regulations for data recovery, such as the
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Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) in the
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medical industry, or SEC guidelines in the financial community.”
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ColoSpace seeks to provide hosting that
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complies with professional regulations and guidelines, such as the
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Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), designed
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to standardize the way all health care organizations electronically
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exchange patient data and to protect patients from unauthorized
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disclosure of their medical records. HIPAA regulations require health
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care organizations to formalize a plan that complies with audit
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standards, security, privacy and transaction exchange standards.
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Companies like ColoSpace and DataMirror,
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a provider of enterprise application integration and resiliency
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software, offer hosting and software solutions that provide health care
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organizations with a comprehensive security audit, data backup and
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transaction plan that enables them to monitor all electronic records
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created by computer systems and applications.
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The solutions also help ensure the
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overall security of health care information systems by capturing all
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data that is added, changed or deleted to create real-time audit trails
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that preserve historical information and transactional details that
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would otherwise be overwritten. Beyond HIPAA compliance, both solutions
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also provide a powerful tool for preventing fraud, abuse and legal
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liability, as well as improving health care services and
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accountability.
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The availability and proper storage and
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capacity to restore medical and financial and corporate records are of
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utmost importance, and as a result, the above type of services, in
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conjunction with storage area networks (SANs) for backup and retrieval,
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have become extremely important options.
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SANs are interconnections between several
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data servers and storage devices for the use of a larger user network.
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SANs provide functionality such as backup and restoration, retrieval
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and archiving and data migration between storage devices.
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The practicality of SANs is that they
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prevent the tendency of an enterprise’s network from bogging down while
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backup and retrieval functions are being performed. SANs are also
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becoming increasingly important since they provide data redundancy for
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the enterprise in the face of physical and electronic attacks.
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One company specializing in storage services like SANs is Arsenal Digital Solutions (arsenaldigital.com).
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Arsenal’s suite of outsourced storage management services eliminates
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the challenges and risks associated with managing complex, multi-vendor
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storage architectures and software point solutions. The company has
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developed send agents, encryption and authentication technologies that
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let the customer move data stored in an Internet data center between
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partners or employees.
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The firm’s set of business continuity
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services allows service providers and enterprises to outsource their
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disaster recovery capabilities, including backup and recovery.
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It can be expected that as 2004
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progresses, service providers will continue to develop and vary their
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offerings to account for business continuity. Key components of these
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services will include the contingency planning and consulting that
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determine risk identification, measurement and the appropriate
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response.
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