Sep 8, 2005
Risks due to inadequate Back Up Planning
While I was writing the chapter on risk of my book " deliver on promise-----", the subject issue popped in my mind. I need your feedback on it. So please read & send me your message at
sbansal@san.rr.com.
If the application is not mission critical, systems do not need to be backed up. However with growing complexity, seldom systems are not mission critical. Though some may be more critical than the others. Therefore, a judicious level of back up must be considered right from the selection & evaluation stages. Financial and Customer facing systems that used to be thought of pretty harmless systems, can bring the entire enterprise to its knees now a days, if the system fails. Where as hard core Process Control systems can not be allowed to go down in the midst of production. Thus depending upon the business processes' criticality back up has got to be considered.
The threat to the risk can be eliminated by considering different levels of back up. Automatic back up with shared resources, analog backup in some applications & manual back up are the modes of back up that can be used. This has to be considered for all elements of the entire system. Thought must also be given to readiness exercises after the go live time, so that operating people do not forget to run the system in the back up modes.
Sam Bansal
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