Читать книгу Maintaining Mission Critical Systems in a 24/7 Environment - Peter M. Curtis - Страница 17

Businesses rest at the mercy of the mission critical facilities sustaining them. Each year billions of capital dollars are spent on the electrical and mechanical infrastructure that supports IT around the globe. It is important to keep in mind that downtime can cost companies millions of dollars per hour or more. An estimated 94% of all businesses that suffer a large data loss go out of business within two years regardless of the size of the business. The daily operations of our economic system and our way of life depend on critical infrastructure being available 100% of the time with no exceptions.

Critical industries are operating continuously, 365 days. Because conducting daily operations necessitate the use of new technology, more and more applications are packed into servers, and servers are being packed into a single cabinet. The growing number of servers operating 24/7 increases the need for power, cooling, and airflow. When a disaster causes the facility to experience lengthy downtime, a prepared organization is able to quickly resume normal business operations by using a predetermined recovery strategy. Strategy selection involves focusing on key risk areas and selecting a strategy for each one. Also, in an effort to boost reliability and security, the potential impacts and probabilities of these risks, as well as the costs to prevent or mitigate damages and the time to recover, should be established.

Many organizations associate disaster recovery and business continuity only with IT and communication functions and miss other critical areas that can seriously impact their business. Within these areas may be a multitude of critical systems that require maintenance, the development of procedures, and appropriate documentation. Some of these systems are listed later in Table 1.3.

One major area that necessitates strategy development is the banking and financial service industry. The absence of strategy that guarantees recovery has an impact on employees, facilities, power, customer service, billing, and customer and public relations. All areas require a clear, well‐thought‐out strategy based on recovery time objectives, cost, profitability impact, and safety. The strategic decision is based on some of the following factors:

 The maximum allowable delay time prior to the initiation of the recovery process.

 The time frame required to execute the recovery process once it begins.

 The minimum computer configurations required to process critical applications.

 The minimum communication device and backup circuits required for critical applications.

 The minimum space requirements for essential staff members and equipment.

 The total cost involved in the recovery process and the total loss as a result of down time.

Developing strategies with implementation steps means no time is wasted in a recovery scenario. The focus is to implement the plan quickly, and successfully in order to accomplish this people must be properly trained. Is the person you hired three months ago up to this task? The right strategies implemented will effectively mitigate damages, minimize disruptions, reduce the cost of downtime, and remove the threat to life safety.