Recent adverse weather conditions across the UK have once again highlighted how factors we cannot control can disrupt business continuity. With 80% of businesses affected by a major incident, either never re-opening, or closing within 18 months, it is worrying to see that only 35% of SMEs have a comprehensive disaster recovery plan in place. While Disaster Recovery (DR) is, at least theoretically, not a difficult process, it requires a sensible and diligent IT manager to devise a clear strategy and plan within the business.
To learn how to plan disaster recovery for your organisation, visit IP EXPO Europe at the ExCel London on the 8-9 October 2014.
In DR we trust: meeting customers’ expectations
While your customers might empathise with your situation when disaster strikes, their primary concern is how it will impact their business. Therefore, a DR plan should prioritise the restoration of customer facing services in order to prevent long term damage to your own business. With 75% of businesses shifting towards a hybrid cloud approach before 2015 and technologies enabling cloud workload portability emerging, the process of safeguarding data, building in resilience and rapidly restoring services is arguably cheaper and easier to establish than it has ever been before. However, in common with most effective business practices, there are still no shortcuts to the process of assessing risks, planning and then the implementation of this process.
As Tim Dunger, Managing Director at Plan B Disaster Recovery puts it, “in data centres, often companies think that if they have a hosted solution, they have a disaster recovery solution. However, this is often not the case. It’s probably even more important to have an independent DR provider if you’re hosted. In fact, if a data centre goes down then they’ll have to recover all their clients at the same time – a massive operation to undertake which will take days to complete.”
Managing services in the cloud requires the application of all of the same basic principles and best practices as on premise systems. The basics like keeping off site back ups still apply, they just look different. You need to control the location of your data in the cloud to be sure you maintain at the very least data centre diversity, if not full geographic diversity of your data. Finally, something to keep in mind is to check that your DR provider doesn’t use the same data centre you do as this would mean that you would both go down in a flood/fire scenario etc.
As companies awaken to the need for solid disaster recovery plans, this year’s IP EXPO Europe will feature seminars and other activities where examples of best practice and the latest technologies will be showcased. Therefore, join us at IP EXPO Europe to understand the innovative services enabling companies to build and manage infrastructures that can survive whatever the weather.
IP EXPO Europe show preview
IP EXPO Europe, held on the 8 – 9 October 2014, is Europe’s leading cloud and IT infrastructure event. Designed for professionals across the whole spectrum of IT roles, it is the definitive event to view brand new technologies, and through exclusive keynote presentations, gain fresh insights from the leading thinkers in IT. With cloud, mobility, security, analytics, infrastructure and datacentre technologies all under one roof, IP EXPO Europe covers everything needed to run IT for a successful enterprise.
Located at the ExCel centre, London, for 2014, IP EXPO Europe will this year feature two brand new co-located events, Cyber Security EXPO and Data Centre EXPO, designed to address the new developments and trends in these critical areas. With over 300 exhibitors from the likes of Microsoft, VMware, IBM and Schneider Electric, the show will feature demonstrations and presentations which cover every facet of IT infrastructure, including the cloud, data centres and the latest solutions to combat cyber-crime. IP EXPO Europe is this year’s must visit event for all IT specialists. 
The opening keynote speech will be delivered by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, who TIME magazine included in its “Top 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century”. Sir Tim will outline his vision for the 2050 Web and how organisations will use it to gain competitive advantage in future. Berners-Lee will also offer his insight into business strategies for innovation and the creation of markets through digital channels.
Register now for the show at www.ipexpo.co.uk and keep up with the latest news and developments by following @IPEXPO in Twitter and the tag #IPEXPOEurope.
IP EXPO Europe
8 – 9 October 2014
ExCel London