PC Research's Disaster Readiness Plan isn't just data mirroring-- it is
a low-cost, superior plan to keep any size of business running with no
loss or downtime, through any type of disaster that may strike at any time.
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IBM's "Business Resilience" Services (© ™ by IBM)
IBM stresses the importance of a disaster plan as well as anyone, so we
quote them --
"Business continuity is vital to business success. And in today's interconnected
world, virtually every aspect of a company's operation is vulnerable to
disruption. Some risks could take your business offline for days,
but in a competitive environment, even four hours of downtime could prove
fatal. As the number of risks to businesses increases, the worst-case
scenario "insurance policy" approach to business continuity has
become woefully inadequate."
See IBM Business Resilience or
IBM Services or
IBM Press Release
In fact, disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes, lightning, flooding, even
failure of key parts of an IT infrastructure, can take a business down
for weeks, if not months. Some companies never fully recover from
such disasters, and bankruptcy looms as a very real possibility for them. |
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Backup is not a dependable way to keep a business running
IBM has researched just about every LAN, WAN, SAN, NAS and distributed
storage backup system imaginable, and it seems they have now realized what
PC Research's Hi-Tech division knew years ago -- backup strategies don't
keep your business running in the event of a disaster. Sure, they
make data recoverable, but the typical tape or file library, LAN or WAN
storage takes 1-2 days to restore if a server dies or is wiped out. That
1-2 days can cost companies $10,000 to $ millions in down time. So backup is not a "resilience"
solution. |
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Restoring Data is different than a Disaster
We hope that every U.S. corporation has some kind of a reliable data-mirroring
plan, whether it is disk-image or tape-file based, and whether it is LAN-WAN
or SAN-NAS based. These backup strategies are fine to recover lost
data, restore a system to a prior working state, or even recover a server
from OS problems.
But that is NOT a disaster plan. A disaster is a critical event that stops your
business from running at all for a sufficient time period that you lose revenue, pay employees to just sit and wait,
or lose valuable customers while down.
In a disaster, you can count on losing at least one crucial server that
runs your entire business, or an important part of it, like you product
database. The server can't be quickly restored from a backup because
either the OS is trashed, or the server itself died and no longer runs.
You typically face rebuilding the OS and all services from scratch, or
buying a new server, which typically takes 1-3 days.
Even a small disaster will cost a typical business at least $10,000 in
lost time or revenue. If you invested $5,000 in a reliable Disaster
Readiness Plan, you'd cover the investment and pay for a new server just
in one small event like a server loss.
Disasters usually hit much harder. A big storm, a lightning strike,
a fire, or water damage can take out much of your office. A tornado,
flood or big fire will destroy all your office and data, and a hurricane
could easily take out the entire building.
In such cases, all on-site backups are lost along with the rest of your office.
Thus, on-site backups, storage or data warehouses are useless in a significant disaster. |
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Disaster Readiness means IT redundancy off site
Off-site redundancy is crucial to business "resilience" and continuity
during a disaster. Any significant disaster means that most if not
all of your office is gone, or inaccessible (as in a hurricane or fire
evacuation), hence you may not be able to carry on business for weeks.
IBM and others, finally realizing this, now offer totally off-site backup
solutions. Backing up hard drives over the internet is very slow, it forces
businesses to depend on remote service providers for recovery, and it involves
many other drawbacks. On-site data redundancy is better in most cases,
because systems can be restored by local IT staff more quickly. The main
value of off-site backup in in the infrequent event of a disaster affecting
the entire site.
The biggest problem with offsite backup solutions is how to restore your
data if your servers have been destroyed or are inaccessible. A business
needs continuity through a disaster, not have their data at another site with no way to access it.
Remember, web sites and web services are IP dependent, so you cannot
rapidly transfer a website to a different IP location without losing continuity.
DNS records around the globe must be updated, which takes time.
Consequently, IBM and others are moving toward "cloud computing",
realizing that if you are going to store a company's IT resources on your
mainframe servers, you have to give them virtual access to that data when they need it -- like in the
event of a disaster at their site.
Hence, offsite mirroring of a company's IT resources to a remote site seems
to necessitate cloud computing, because if a company is not able to access and run their applications and
data remotely until their local disaster passes, the offsite storage is
useless to them, isn't it? |
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Cost is a Major Factor in Business
Resilience and Continuity
When you entrust your IT system redundancy to an off-site provider like
IBM, who can also set you up with virtual access to your applications and
data while your business endures a local disaster, the initial $ expense
and ongoing payments will increase the cost of doing business.
But for major Fortune 500 companies, the cost is well worth it. Our
research collaborations with IBM shows that IBM is an extremely reliable and conscientious company
-- they will do whatever it takes to keep businesses up and running in
a disaster or crisis, even if they lose money. Big corporations with
mission critical operations, where 4 hours down time is much too long,
would do well to sign on to IBM's business resilience and cloud computing
services. A $10M loss for 1 day's down time would make the investment in
IBM's programs well worth it.
Also, organizations with offices linked nationally or globally, or who
have applications running off remote servers, or with WAN distributed data,
should consider services like IBM's, because the complexity of restoring
app-data links to remote servers, when a primary one dies, is often beyond
local IT staff. IBM can virtualize your servers and let you keep
running transparently.
The cost of such "business resilience" and "cloud computing"
services is probably $50,000 to $100,000 per year -- however, if that saves
major $ loss in a disaster, it may be well worth it.
But what about companies who cannot afford ongoing big costs for Disaster
Readiness if it is never used? What of the majority of companies
who can handle a short down time? What of the many businesses who have dedicated
servers per location, and who just need a low-cost way to make their IT
infrastructure immune from loss in a disaster? These make up the
bulk of U.S. businesses. How can they get a foolproof but affordable
Disaster Readiness Plan?
That is where PC Research's superior Disaster Readiness Plan comes in --
There is zero ongoing support or service costs, any business can use it to protect all
their IT infrastructure from loss in a site-wide disaster, down time may
be zero, to 6 hours max, which any medium to small business can handle, and the
plan is customizable to each company's unique needs. |
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PC Research's Disaster Readiness Plan for medium to small businesses is
totally different than IBM's remote backup services, including running
virtually while local servers are down. We don't get into that, because
-- (1) if a disaster also takes down local access to the internet, the
whole idea of "cloud computing" becomes useless, (2) website
services cannot be redirected to new IPs in less than 18-24 hours, due
to global DNS updating, (3) internet backups are slow and inefficient,
plus accessing a virtual server over the internet is very slow, and (4) data resources distributed across the internet cannot be
redirected quickly to a virtual host, no matter what.
Instead, PC Research's Disaster Readiness Plan is superior to all others
because -- (1) it makes sure that all crucial IT resources are replicated
to a second "off-site" remote site, (2) that second site is on
line and known to be working when any disaster strikes, (3) the down time
to migrate to the new configuration is only a matter of local DNS changes,
not global internet ones, so it is instantaneous, and (4) changing back
and forth from the primary to the secondary mirror site is pre-tested and
guaranteed to work in any disaster.
Equally important, any medium to small business, who looks over our site
and wants to contribute to PC Research's non-profit work to help make a
better future for all people, can get our unique Disaster Readiness Plan
for free. It costs nothing with a minimum donation to our non-profit efforts.
Every Disaster Plan must be customized to the needs of each business. A "canned plan" does not work, as each business has a
unique topolgy with unique needs. Simple customization for small
businesses can fit into a $5,000 donation. More complex customization for
medium size businesses can fit in a $10,000 to $15,000 donation to our
non-profit work. Our hi-tech division will be happy to work with
your business to develop a Disaster Readiness strategy customized to you
unique business needs.
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Comparison of IBM's "Business Resilience Service", "Cloud
Computing", and PC Research's Disaster Readiness Plan
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| Feature, Benefit or Limitation of Strategy |
Business Resilience / Cloud Computing Services |
PC Research's Disaster Readiness Plan |
| Type of backup, recovery or mirror, in on-site disaster |
Remote internet backup, slow to backup, recover, and run apps and data
remotely -- useless when internet access fails |
LAN backup is preferable to internet backup, both can be used; backup +
recovery is at 100Mb / 1Gb LAN speeds |
| Down time to recover business in a disaster at primary business site |
2-4 hours to redirect users to cloud computing network; 12-24 hours to
redirect website traffic; 24-48 hours if personnel need to be relocated,
terminals replaced, or servers reinstalled |
0-2 hours to redirect users to secondary site; 12-24 hours to redirect
website traffic; 0-5 hours if personnel need to be relocated, terminals
installed, or servers reinstalled |
| Vulnerabilities of the Disaster Readiness strategy |
Rendered useless if disaster affects local / regional internet access;
unworkable if telephone lines down; 1 day downtime or more if users run
apps via an internet or intranet interface |
Business as usual as long as either telephone lines or internet access
is available either locally, or at the second site away from the disaster;
intranet runs at full speed |
| Down time for site-wide disaster (office unusable) |
2 to 4 days to relocate personnel to secondary rented site, set up terminals,
phone lines, temporary servers, reset IPs |
0 to 4 hours to relocate personnel to secondary site, IPs reset locally,
backup already online, people working quickly |
| Up-front cost of service or readiness plan, ongoing fees |
Up-front cost scaled to corporate size, needs, and demand on remote resources.
Typically $50,000 to $100,000 per year. |
One time customization cost in $5,000 to $15,000 donation to non-profit.
NO yearly fees. Donations gratefully received |
Cost and features of Business Resilience and Cloud Computing services are
estimates only. Consult IBM or other providers about your company's size,
needs and costs.
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Conclusion
PC Research's Disaster Readiness Plan can be deployed by any size business,
even the largest -- but without on-site IT staff to handle redirects across
national / global WANs, major companies with distributed infrastructures
are best to seek help from a service provider like IBM, who will do whatever
it takes to keep you up and running during a major disaster, where any
single glitch can cause big losses.
Medium to small businesses with a secondary site already established, or easily available in an emergency,
are perfect candidates to take advantage of PC Research's Superior Disaster Readiness Plan. Looking
at the above table, you can clearly see that down times during significant to major disasters are far less than
any other plan available. That is because we work with you to develop a custom strategy just for your
business, which is in place, operational, and ready to go at a moment's notice. It is the most secure plan of all.
Review our site to see the innovative projects we are pioneering -- all are leading or groundbreaking efforts to help people through the toughest problems that affect all of us today. When you realize that we are at the forefront of all the latest technologies, realize that the same is true for our hi-tech division leading successful disaster readiness plans. Ask your organization to donate generously to PC Research to support our innovative projects that help everyone. Donate as generously as you can to PC Research NOW ! |
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