Business continuity, backup and disaster recovery plan Research Paper

Business continuity, backup and disaster recovery plan - Research Paper Example The purpose of this research paper is to define what this plan is, analyze its components and effectively see its overall success and limitations. Business Continuity is a planning process that provides a framework to ensure survival of a business at any presenting risk. It insures the future of the business with respect to key customers, business reputation and suppliers. (Bell. J., June 2000). The components of the business continuity life cycle include; Analysis, Solution design, Implementation, Testing & acceptance and Maintenance. Business continuity plans need to be clear and concise. They should clarify all the protocol and procedures to be followed in the event of a disaster. It should be part and parcel of any business. (Harney, J., 2004). We will consider the above five steps in coming up with an effective business continuity plan. Analysis Here, we formulate a list of potential vulnerabilities within the business. That is, whether risk pose within the resource department, or systems, processes, or suppliers. Therefore, it implies a consideration of each department separately. We analyze the overall performance of each department with regards to its input in the business. ... Business-driven risks include application outages, or surplus from marketing demand-generation campaigns. They may cause business-wide ramifications that result in breaches in compliance, governance, availability, security and performance. (IBM Global, June 2011). If left unattended, they may cause concern to the top management and stakeholders. Data-driven risks focus on a wide range of factors such as disk failure, corruption, viruses or exponential data growth. This impacts negatively on the business. Event-driven risks disrupt the company’s personnel, processes, applications and infrastructure. They present as power outages, natural disasters, pandemics, fires, and thefts. (IBM Global, June 2011) Solution design Once we have identified potential risks after a rigorous analytical method. Then we strategize on the solution design process. (Dimattia, S., November 15, 2000). We customize the solution to the risks. A robust resilience solution for business-driven risks goes bey ond simply restoring the business IT infrastructure, to keeping the business continuously operating and easing management of compliance with industry regulations. It calls for the provision of virtually anytime, anywhere accessibility to approved users. To protect against data-driven risks, the business solution will focus on a delivery of an efficient backup and quick retrieval of critical data and information. It requires an indexing method with efficient search capabilities. The data also needs to be managed continuously and kept safe from viruses, thefts and other forms of loss. To mitigate the Event-driven risks, the business must be able to distribute operations beyond the area of immediate impact. (IBM Global, June 2011). This implies business