Learning Log 5

How IT service delivery and availability related to disaster recovery?

Nowadays, every organization is heavily reliant to the use of Information Technology (IT). However, it is inevitable that bad things could happen to good information systems. That is how life is; everything is moving along swimmingly and then, nothing is moving at all. It is impossible to prevent all bad things from happening; all that can be done is to devise ways to rebound when they do occur. Some organizations are content to wait until something goes wrong before figuring out what to do. This may be fine for small businesses with little information, long lead times for their transactions and extensive insurance policies. Any organization with a lot of data in use all of the time and that must be available shortly following a disruption must plan for recovery in advance of the aforementioned bad things.

I just remember one of the topics in Organizational Management, wherein fortunately, I was given the opportunity to discussed business continuity, made me realized that without business continuity management, organizations especially those who are heavily reliant to IT will definitely have issues on providing efficient and effective service.

If it were only clear which bad things were going to happen, this would all be much easier. But it is in the nature of bad things not to let on; that is one of the things that make them bad. This necessitates planning for many more bad things than actually will occur and probably in a greater degree of detail than will be necessary at the time. But to quote former US president Dwight D. Eisenhower, “The plan is nothing. Planning is everything.”1 In information systems terms, Eisenhower’s dictum means that consideration of needs and acquisition of necessary resources are more important by far than a neatly printed emergency manual. Organizations must devise emergency response plans for the immediate period following an incident, with the emphasis on preserving human life and safety and only secondarily on information resources. A crisis management plan guides management in making and executing decisions to minimize the effect on an organization until operations return to normal. A business continuity plan prepares organizations to carry on vital (and ultimately all) operations under adverse circumstances.