Business Continuity Services (ArcTrix)

The Service

VPA combines bespoke designs with pre-designed solutions for a range of common IT applications as follows:

Bespoke IT Business Continuity Solutions Pre-designed IT Business Continuity Solution
  • WAN
  • LAN
  • R&D servers
  • E-Business applications
  • E-Commerce applications
  • Other inward and web facing applications
  • Internet connectivity
  • Storage
  • File and Print servers
  • Messaging application including Microsoft Exchange
  • Databases (Microsoft SQL and Oracle)
  • Home / Remote access to applications in the event of a premises disaster

Business Continuity Overview

What would be the cost, per hour, of major systems downtime at your organisation?

In a recent survey1, organisations were asked this question, one-quarter did not know, but one-quarter said it would cost a minimum of ?10,000 an hour:

Cost Per Hour of system downtime Percentage of respondents
Up to £1,000
23%
£1,000 - £5,000
16%
£5,000 - £10,000
11%
£10,000 - £20,000
7%
£20,000 - £50,000
3%
Above £50,000
3%
Not sure (don't know how to calculate)
25%

1Source: Downtime costs money, Infoconomy / APC, 2004

Disasters impact businesses of all sizes.

"Roughly one third of all UK businesses had a security incident that involved loss of data (excluding viruses). A quarter had accidental system failures, of which more than half (55%) had more than one such incident.61% of companies took more than a day to recover from their system failure" 2

2 Source: Information Security Breaches Survey 2004 - DTI / PricewaterhouseCoopers www.security-survey.gov.uk

The benefits of an effective BC strategy include:

  • Increased customer satisfaction - effective business continuity planning ensures the availability and efficiency of customer related processes in the event of an IT system failure.
  • Leverages new technology - business continuity capabilities may facilitate new ways of working e.g. mobile working, home working.
  • Minimises risk to business - business continuity minimises risk in terms of litigation, competitor, regulatory and compliance issues.

How Does It Work?

Any company that is serious about its business is forced to think about Business Continuity sooner rather than later and plan for, and implement, measures to ensure that its business:

  • is resilient to a disaster (i.e. prevent the disaster from happening whenever possible);
  • can recover after a disaster (i.e. repair damage and reinstate the business to predefined levels within the demanded timeframe).

The elements which are required to ensure business continuity for a disaster event, vary from one company to the next and depend on the following:

  • Recovery Point Objective (RPO) - The maximum time before the disaster happens for which the business is prepared to allow data to be lost - i.e. the time between data back-ups.
  • Recovery Time Objective (RTO) - The maximum time the business can tolerate a discontinuity of service. This can vary from minutes, for example when a cluster fails over from one server to another, to days while new equipment is supplied, and applications and data restored.

Based on the above, the following represents typical risk events and examples of the proposed BC mitigation:

TECHNICAL AND DATA:

Risk Example Business Continuity Mitigation
Server hard disc failure Redundant disks within the server
Corruption of messaging database Creation of multiple mail stores and individual mail backups

NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE:

Risk Example Business Continuity Mitigation
Power cut UPS and generator backup
Loss of data communications to the main company building Redundant data connectivity

BUILDING PHYSICALS:

Risk Example Business Continuity Mitigation
Fire in the server comms room Duplicate comms room and server infrastructure
Catastrophic loss of the main company building Stand-by office space

When deciding on the type of BC mitigation for a business, variables which impact the RPO and RTO include:

  • Speed of response
  • Certainty of the solutions workability
  • Mechanism to ensure solution availability
  • Security
  • Accessibility
  • Flexibility
  • Budget

VPA's BC design has three classifications:

BC Clasification Acceptable Data Loss Time to Recovery
Alpha Solution Nil Maximum 1 hour
Beta Solution Up to 1 day 4 to 8 hours
Gamma Solution 1 day plus 1 day plus

 

 

Why VPA

VPA provides an established framework of consultation for Business Continuity design and proven delivery processes, which incorporate predesigned solutions and bespoke designs for IT business continuity. Because VPA uses business continuity design processes and solutions that are proven, our clients benefit from a solution that greatly reduces risk, whilst being highly cost effective.

Bespoke Application Assessment

All bespoke applications are assessed to ensure full data integrity during replication. This enables full testing of the BC system prior to the service going live. Should system administration intervention be required to fail over the system, the time to achieve this is defined within the Service Level Agreement for the Business Continuity service.
Vector Projects Associates Ltd © 2006