June 21 – 27 Marks 2009 Business Continuity Awareness Week in North America
Wayne, Pa., June 22, 2009 — According to the Disaster Recovery Institute International, June 21 to 27 marks the 2009 Business Continuity Awareness Week in North America. SunGard Availability Services urges companies to take this opportunity to introduce and strengthen the concepts of business continuity planning within their organization.
In recognition of Business Continuity Awareness Week, SunGard recommends companies follow these five steps:
Consider the various threats to business operations. In the face of increased public health concerns and the potential impact surrounding the H1N1 influenza virus, as well as the onset of the 2009 hurricane season, a disaster recovery solution for business continuity planning has never been more critical. Disruptions – whether the result of a hurricane, pandemic, power outage or hardware failure – can affect your IT infrastructure and ultimately, your organization’s productivity and bottom-line. When developing a business continuity strategy, your company should consider the full range of disaster scenarios and plan accordingly.
Test your disaster recovery plan. Many companies think they have an effective disaster recovery plan in place. However, the true effectiveness of a plan can only be fully understood after it is tested. Business Continuity Awareness Week provides a perfect catalyst to initiate a test of your plan. Even if your company cannot arrange a full-scale exercise, look for smaller ways to test portions of your plan. For example, arrange a test of your company’s call tree or review recent organizational changes and assign new responsibilities based on the current structure and available resources.
Often, organizations find weaknesses during testing that they plan to address and correct over time. If you have conducted a preparedness test or exercise recently, now is the time to revisit and review your findings – and act to mitigate these weaknesses.
Bridge the gap between business and IT. The success or failure of a business continuity program hinges on having the entire organization on the same page for disaster preparedness. In order to be successful, IT professionals need to involve their business unit colleagues, garner their support and keep them involved.
The 2009 State of Disaster Recovery survey commissioned by SunGard Availability Services and conducted by Harris Interactive® revealed a lack of understanding by business executives of the value of disaster recovery and business continuity to organizational success. This research shows how important it is for IT professionals to educate and closely involve business decision-makers in disaster recovery planning. Combining comprehensive planning with available technology, information, and industry insights will go a long way to securing greater visibility, respect and understanding for your business continuity initiatives.
Prioritize your business continuity planning efforts with time and data requirements. A business impact analysis will help show how much time your company can afford to have IT systems down – also known as Recovery Time Objective (RTO) – as well as how much data you can afford to lose – the Recovery Point Objective (RPO). Armed with this knowledge, your company can prioritize your response balancing recovery requirements, risk tolerance and how much you are willing to spend on a business continuity strategy.
Consider the benefits of business continuity management (BCM) software. BCM software helps organizations develop planning strategies that simplify processes and manage the entire lifecycle of their continuity program – regardless of the technologies used for business continuity and disaster recovery. BCM software is a tool built to accommodate change and address the unique demands of information availability. It can be scaled appropriately to fit companies of any size – regardless of the maturity of their business continuity program or their budget. Take a look at your current business continuity plan and assess whether your organization could save time and resources by implementing BCM software tools.
“Business Continuity Awareness Week provides an opportunity for organizations to re-examine their business continuity plans. It reinforces the message that IT and business share the responsibility for keeping systems, information and people connected,” said Brian Turley, senior vice president and general manager, software solutions at SunGard Availability Services. “At SunGard Availability Services, our customers rely on us to deliver tools to build plans, practice for disruptions and prevail over disasters. We help organizations reduce the downside risk of interrupted business processes and prepare them to utilize the upside potential and competitive advantage of continuous operations.”
About SunGard Availability Services
SunGard Availability Services provides disaster recovery services, managed IT services, information availability consulting services and business continuity management software to more than 10,000 customers in North America and Europe. With four million square feet of datacenter and operations space, SunGard assists IT organizations across virtually all industry and government sectors prepare for and recover from emergencies by helping them minimize their computer downtime and optimize their uptime. Through direct sales and channel partners, we help organizations ensure their people and customers have uninterrupted access to the information systems they need in order to do business. To learn more, visit www.availability.sungard.com or call 1-800-468-7483.
About SunGard
SunGard is one of the world’s leading software and IT services companies. SunGard serves more than 25,000 customers in more than 70 countries, including the world’s 25 largest financial services companies.
SunGard provides software and processing solutions for financial services, higher education and the public sector. SunGard also provides disaster recovery services, managed IT services, information availability consulting services and business continuity management software.
With annual revenue exceeding $5 billion, SunGard is ranked 435 on the Fortune 500 and is the largest privately held business software and services company on the Forbes list of private businesses. Based on information compiled by Datamonitor*, SunGard is the third largest provider of business applications software after Oracle and SAP. Continuity, Insurance & Risk has recognized SunGard as service provider of the year an unprecedented five times. For more information, please visit SunGard at www.sungard.com .
*January 2009 Technology Vendors Financial Database Tracker http://www.datamonitor.com
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