Web Biz

    I think that the single most important factor in managing company data is the backing up of that data in accordance with a Disaster Recovery Plan.
    Data backup is essential to data management because of the high value that the data generates for the organization, and secondly, the activity of backing up data is an ongoing process as part of a successful disaster recovery plan in order to effectively manage the organization’s data.  According to Wikipedia, Disaster Recovery in terms of Information Technology is "the ability of an infrastructure to restart operations after a disaster", whether the disaster is a natural disaster like Hurricane Katrina, nuclear plant accident, terrorist attack, or pandemic (wikipedia.com, 2006). As the article in eWeek entitled "Disaster Recovery Gets Real" discusses, the disaster recover plan for an organization should not only consider the information stored within the IT department, but also the organization-wide data, information, and knowledge (Lundquist, 2005). I think that IT managers have a very narrow focus on the view of Disaster Recovery, and secondly, that managers tend to forget about Disaster Recovery in the wake of the fast-paced world of technology.
    IT managers live a very busy life, and the last thing on their mind is the total destruction of all that they work for. However, I think that a Disaster Recovery plan needs to brought from the back-burner to the front of IT managers’ to-do lists, especially in the wake of the recent world events. IT managers need to be concerned with Disaster Recovery plans so that they will not loose all of the highly valuable data and knowledge that the organization has so heavily invested in.
    The main part of any disaster recovery plan is the backing up of the organization’s data. This is crucial to the disaster recovery plan because without backups organizations are left to attempt to recover any salvageable data. Secondly, the more often the backups are performed, the higher the likelihood that the data is not stale and outdated, and is accurate and up-to-date. Third, the backups need to be located strategically in different physical locations, so that if the backup is lost in one location, it is still accessible from an alternate location. For example, "in the case of Katrina, some firms didn’t expect to be back in their main offices for several weeks" (Britt, 2005). When backing up data to remote locations, it is also very important to ensure that the systems at the remote locations are the same systems that the organization is currently using. An example of this occurred to the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, in which "they rushed the tapes to Houston, where many hurricane victims relocated, but found that the tapes were not compatible with the systems there. So they had to scramble to reconfigure the computer systems to read the records" (Hasson, 2005).
    Data Backup is a vital activity for a successful Disaster Recovery plan, and an increasingly important role for risk management. Risk management, as defined by Wikipedia, is "the process of measuring, or assessing risk and then developing strategies to manage the risk" (wikipedia, 2006). I think that risk managers need to work closely with all departments within an organization, especially the Information Technology department that houses and manages the organization’s data. According to Eric Lundquist of eWeek, "Risk managers for various businesses are now thinking in very broad terms concerning the best practices and policies for preserving the data that is essential to business operations" (Lundquist , 2006). I think that Eric raises a valid point when he continues to say that "Remote data backup or virtualized processors won’t do a company much good if the people required to run those restoration processes are stuck in a traffic jam"(Lundquist , 2006).
    According to CIO author James E. Geis, the organization should consider the following prior to establishing a backup or disaster recovery plan, no matter what technologies the organization is using:

• Develop a comprehensive plan for addressing all backup and recovery facets. Identify key participants and define those roles. Document processes and procedures, assign ownership, and continuously validate that they work.
• Understand the contingency for every possible human and non-human event.
• What data needs to be backed up frequently?
• Determine the RPO and RTO for each class of data.
• What data should be replicated (local and remote) for business continuity or rapid restore?
• When determining architecture and alternatives, consider distance to alternate sites and factor that into restore (retrieving data over a network or via tapes being transported).
• Identify key participants in the recovery process. What is the communication plan, both internally and externally?
• When information is archived to tape, nearline, or content addressable storage, how is that pool protected? How do its backup and recovery issues differ from production?
• Make architectural and purchasing decisions on technology that will serve the purpose for the long run and provide scalability. Tried and true technology, and even some newer technology that fits into existing architectures, can decrease cost over the long run and increase operational efficiency.
• Is the cost of having a rapid restore from disk greater or less than the productivity time and revenue lost while waiting for a tape restore? (Geis, 2005).

I think that Geis offers some great tips to Information Technology managers to effectively manage their data and ensuring the preservation of that data. I think that is is obvious that Geis is against the traditional approach to backing up the vast amounts of organization data onto tape format, and prefers a more modern rapid recovery system that many vendors ship and/or provide support.

In conclusion, an organization should religiously backup their data, and I feel that this is the most important activity for managing an organization’s data and ensuring the organization can rely upon that data to be there. Without backups and an ongoing disaster recovery plan, IT managers will not have any data to manage.

Resources:

• Britt, Phillip. (2005, October). Taking Steps for Disaster Recovery. Information Today, 22(9), 1,21. Retrieved February 8, 2006, from ABI/INFORM Global database. (Document ID: 915261131).
• Hasson, Judi. (2005, November). On your mark, get set . . . Federal Computer Week, 19(40), 16-18. Retrieved February 8, 2006, from ABI/INFORM Trade & Industry database. (Document ID: 947137121).
• James E. Geis. (2005, February 4). Recovery: The Only Reason for Backup. Forsythe Retrieved February 8, 2006, from http://www2.cio.com/consultant/report3305.html.
• Lundquist, Eric. (2005, October). Disaster Recovery Gets Real; Latest storms force big-picture view of business continuity. The IT department, once seen as having too narrow a focus on making good tech product choices. eWeek, 22(39), 28. Retrieved February 8, 2006, from Research Library database. (Document ID: 905709271).
• Wikipedia.com. (January 31, 2006). Disaster recovery. Retrieved February 8, 2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disaster_Recovery_Plan