SunGard warns against complacency

Many US companies only think about their business continuity plans in preparation for an active summer storm season. But as the 2007 hurricane season has come to a close, SunGard Availability Services reminds all companies that now is not the time to set their plans on a shelf to collect dust. There is no off-season for preparedness, and as companies head into the new year of their business cycles, they should take advantage of the remaining months of the year to test and refresh existing plans, helping to identify changes in rapidly evolving IT environments and business processes.

“It is natural for companies to think about their plans as hurricane season approaches, making sure they align with the current state of the business, both from an IT and business process perspective, in case a major storm should occur,” said William DiMartini, senior vice president of professional services for SunGard Availability Services. “Yet, we see a general sense of complacency grow as we move into the fall months, particularly following a slower than usual storm season. This complacency can lead to grave circumstances. We know from 30 years of experience that natural disasters only account for half of all disruptions leading to downtime. It is the common, everyday disruption or hardware failure that is much more likely to wreak havoc on most companies.”
SunGard Availability Services recommends that companies follow a planned ‘work-out regimen’ to keep their business continuity programs in exceptional fitness, year-round:

1) Conduct a ‘mini’ business impact analysis (BIA) and technology profile: SunGard recommends companies conduct a refresher BIA at least once per year, which allows them to review existing business processes against the business continuity plan to identify idiosyncrasies or changes. In the course of one year, there are likely to be many significant changes to overall business processes and IT infrastructure – from hardware and networks to applications - that may impact a company’s existing plan. Taking stock of these changes and adjusting plans is critical in maintaining proper levels of information availability.

2) Assess overall risk: While the finance team is busy evaluating actuarial risk, the business continuity team should determine whether there have been any changes in the operational risks faced by the company. This can lead to changes in information availability requirements; such as more aggressive recovery time objectives and recovery point objectives (RTOs and RPOs).

3) Run a table-top exercise: Many companies practice for the big event, but underestimate the value of smaller exercises to test overall incident management practices. SunGard suggests that companies involve senior management in table-top exercises, as frequently as quarterly, to be sure all key parties know who does what and when to escalate an incident to a disaster. Recovery failures occur most often when the responsible parties are slow to initiate the business continuity or recovery plan – or fail to initiate entirely. Recovery failures can be reduced if business and IT executives alike have participated in run-throughs to practice the necessary steps.

4) Update your plan: After following these steps, it is critical that companies update their plans regularly to accommodate changes in business and IT processes, overall risk, and based on key insights from table-top exercises. Taking the time to refresh business continuity plans based on the information culled from these exercises will help to ensure a smooth response to the everyday or exceptional incident.

www.availability.sungard.com

•Date: 27th Nov 2007• Region:US •Type: Article •Topic: BC general
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