Outsourced it Support and Business Continuity Working Together
Outsourced IT Support and Business Continuity working together
Businesses are under increasing pressure to have and to comply with a Business Continuity plan. You must identify critical data and recognise the impact of the loss of such data to establish Recovery Time Objectives (RTO) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPO) to keep your business going. Directors and Board members are also looking to cut costs by seeking cheaper alternatives of essential business processes without compromising on the quality of service.
Business Continuity (BC) is a subject that is on the minds of many business decision makers today. Disasters do happen and can disrupt business operations, raising some very important questions:
· How can a business deal with customer issues without the necessary data to hand?
· Can a business continue to work, not only through the disaster, but afterwards as well?
Statistics show that 72% of all UK businesses have a Disaster Recovery (DR) plan in place. However, almost half do not test these plans*. So, if a disaster did happen, would these plans work? You can have a backup plan - what is more important is the ability to perform recovery operations successfully. This often requires IT personnel to perform necessary data recovery tasks as well as assisting in the planning stage to ensure every possible route is taken to prevent downtime and data loss.
Outsourced IT support is a suitable alternative to employing in-house IT staff and reduces costs. However, it is vital that you establish the level of service offered, and how that level of service would satisfy your business needs. For a professional service, look for:
· Accreditations to well known and trusted manufacturers and software companies.
· Compliance with standards, such as the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO).
· Qualifications of technicians, engineers and developers.
Consider the benefits of amalgamating IT Support and BC planning. An IT Support company can work with a business to:
· Design a complete BC and DR Plan, possibly with the aid of BC Management Software.
· Ensure data is not only backed up on a regular basis, but is also retrievable through regular tests.
· Store BC Plans in a secure place, with at least one copy held off site on a secure server.
· Take possible steps to prevent disasters from happening by providing a proactive 24/7 monitoring service and remote helpdesk support.
Not only does this provide a full IT Support solution, but also helps a business work towards the compliance of the BS25999 British Standard in Business Continuity. Critical business data is backed up, contingency plans are designed, tested and kept securely off site, and a trained professional team of IT specialists are working proactively to ensure systems are running and are on call for issues requiring a reactive approach.
* 2008 Information Security Breaches Survey (ISBS)
About the Author:C Data Services, providing IT Support to small and medium size companies, specialising in proactive IT support,hosting solutions, automated remote backups, ASP.NET development and Business Continuity planning and management.
Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - Outsourced it Support and Business Continuity Working Together