Risk Mitigation Strategies for Mid-Size Organizations

In the wake of the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan, many business executives often wonder how to prepare for the possibility that a calamity could wipe out their IT operations. The words "disaster recovery" (DR) evokes images of the earthquakes, floods and other natural disasters that can take your data center offline for hours even days. What we are learning is midsized companies need to take put in to place many of the same risk mitigation procedures as a large organization.

In this white paper from IDC we learn many business-disrupting outages result from causes far less dramatic than natural disasters. Every day events — such as construction crews cutting through a power line, an air conditioning failure, a network provider interruption, or a security issue — can take systems offline. These interruptions happen more than most business managers expect and with increasingly critical impact, as customers become more accustomed to accessing online information and placing orders online.

It is clear that mid-size businesses must prepare for these "disasters" just as larger enterprises do. What are the critical next steps? This paper points out that relatively few mid-size organizations have reached a high level of disaster readiness. Even when they have taken the first steps to protect IT assets against unplanned interruptions and have in place a system for data replication, they must prepare to recover key IT systems from a disaster without severely interrupting their business. This is especially important for mid-size organizations that are often heavily reliant on Web-enabled applications and online systems. This paper looks at these concerns and presents an approach through which targeted solutions and management can reduce business risks by planning to address. Click here to download this white paper.