The dependency of business processes upon the continuous availability of the technology infrastructure that supports them has never been as critical and far-reaching as it is today. Interrupt the IT infrastructure - especially normal access to data - and you effectively interrupt the business.

With the advent of n-tier client/server computing, networked storage, and business process deconstruction, effective DR planning can no longer be performed after the fact. It must become part of the processes by which applications are designed and systems and networks are built.

A DR capability is not a bolt-on created by a planner or team of planners who are given the job and told to "play the hand of cards that you've been dealt." That kind of planning is fraught with huge internal costs as planners must replicate servers and storage on a one-for-one basis at their recovery site. Optimally, planning should provide for the creation of minimal equipment configurations that temporarily enable critical operations to be sustained on consolidated platforms.

So, too, the DR planner must change. Everyone in the organization must become a DR planner, sharing responsibility for identifying disaster potentials so they can be addressed with suitable recovery capabilities. Moreover, DR planners need to become more IT savvy, able to talk the talk of the application architects, server and network administrators and storage managers with whom they must work to safeguard the technology framework that supports the business.

In the 21st Century, disaster recovery planning is no longer a secretary-friendlytask.

Jon William Toigo
CEO and Managing Partner USA
Toigo Partners International
Author of Disaster Recovery Planning 3rd Edition: Preparing for the Unthinkable