In 2014, there were 45 major disaster declarations in the United States according to the Federal Emergency Management Association. These ranged from many severe winter storms, floods and mudslides to tornadoes, earthquakes and a wildfire. For each of these disasters, there were probably numerous companies that were brought to their knees as a result of failed IT systems.
In addition, in 2014, malicious hackers caused a great deal of turmoil for a number of major corporations, such as Target, Home Depot, Staples, and most recently, Sony, by attacking their IT systems and stealing and/or manipulating their valuable data.
These major disasters and security breaches are extreme examples, but are good reminders how important it is to be prepared for such incidents.
IT system failures can happen businesses of any sizes and types. In today’s competitive business world where downtime can easily result in lost customers and opportunities, businesses must ask themselves how long they could survive if their systems failed and then develop a comprehensive plan that includes high availability, business continuity and disaster recovery to protect their operations from potential manmade or natural disasters.
The IT infrastructure should be one of the first items evaluated. With most businesses relying so heavily on data and automated systems in today’s market, the organization’s IT infrastructure is at the core of its operations and it is therefore critical to ensure that it is highly resilient, flexible, scalable, and highly secure.
If what happened in 2014 is any sign of what we have in store for us in 2015, we challenge every business to create or re-evaluate your business continuity plan to ensure your systems are optimized and will allow you to meet the increasing demand for 24×365 availability.
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