Every IT system without a related disaster management plan is considered risky.  Even the most sophisticated security measures are not enough to fully exclude the accidental or even intentionally caused outage of the IT services of an organization. Although the probability of a full outage is low, the resultant damages would be enormous.  Because of that, it is important to assess the impacts of the outage of IT systems. Consequences may vary as to the costs and the inconvenience caused, depending on the duration of the outage and how critical the service is.  We must be able to recover services after the occurrence of the disaster, so we can guarantee the continuation of the core activity of the organization. What can be the consequences of an IT disaster?

• Loss of information

• Interrupted communication

• Damage of security

• Halt of mission critical applications

• Loss of the respect of the customers (customer dissatisfaction)

• Interruption of core activities

Milestones of disaster management

Risk analysis

Several approaches and methodologies exist.  The function of risk analysis is the definition and analysis of the assets (taking into account both those of physical nature - e.g. hardware - and those of different nature - e.g. data), then the clarification of the level of threats (which may be accidental or intentional) regarding these assets, and finally, as a matter related to the assets, the identification and definition of exposed, vulnerable points. The asset-related risks can be calculated through these three factors: the value of the assets, the threats and the level of vulnerability.

The function of risk management is the mitigation of the vulnerability of the assets by implementing the appropriate counter-measures.  The counter-measures can help in several ways: they may reduce the probability of the threat occurring once again, mitigate the impact of an incident that has already occurred, detect the occurrence of the event and they may also help with recovery.

• identification of assets

The survey of the existing hardware / software assets may serve as a basis for the entire planning process.  A comprehensive list must be created about the hardware and software assets of the organization, assorted by function, application and service. The existing assets, all the components of the systems of the organization must be surveyed.

• identification of threats

When the threats are surveyed, it is important to assess not only the direct environment of the IT function, but also the environment in the broader sense of the term, since over half of the causes of disasters are external, i.e. they occur outside the data center.

• Risk analysis and evaluation

After the assessment of the services, cases should be collected about disasters affecting similar services. All risks as well as their impacts on the activities of the organization must be surveyed carefully and objectively.  How can we prevent service outages?  The emphasis should be on prevention, rather than recovery!

Disaster management plan:

The fundamental element of Disaster management is the disaster plan. Recovery after a system outage requires detailed and careful planning, and this is usually no small task.  The creation of an efficient recovery plan requires cooperation between the various fields, divisions, services and service providers.

WHY SYNERGON SYSTEM INTEGRATOR?

The experiences of Synergon Group in disaster management, the skills of our technical consultants and the solutions we sell ensure that our customers get appropriate solutions matching their needs, with guaranteed efficiency.