By Stacey McDaniel
Government agencies generate volumes of electronic data, and are more dependent on technology than ever before. As a result, agencies expect their IT departments to work behind the scenes to keep all systems up, running, and growing -- no matter what happens. A key part of this responsibility requires IT departments to resume operations in spite of interruptions. This continuity of operations (COOP) function requires the identification and installation of backup and recovery solutions that are cost-efficient, but also cause a minimum of disruption. In some cases, COOP also requires that IT departments work to prevent outages in the first place.
Any disruption, whether planned or unplanned, will cause downtime -- the objective is to minimize the downtime and the costs associated with it. According to Infonetics Research of San Jose, CA, large companies lose up to 16% of their annual revenue due to unplanned network downtime. Similarly, in a recent survey, 30 percent of respondents indicated their company incurs at least $10,000 in productivity and revenue losses after suffering a server failure. When disruptions do occur, as they inevitably do, it will pay the organization dividends to have a backup and system recovery strategy that will have operations back up and running within minutes -- not hours or days.
The good news is that an effective backup and recovery strategy can help organizations eliminate most of these losses by ensuring that systems are always available and data integrity remains intact.
Challenges for public sector IT
The need for efficient, timely backup and recovery of valuable systems and information assets is more compelling than ever, in large part due to these factors:
- More data Thanks to "E-Government," the public sector's reliance on IT has grown rapidly. This increased reliance can sometimes result in data being generated faster than the appropriate storage can be acquired. According to a 2004 survey by Horison Information Strategies, the amount of corporate data is increasing at an average rate of 50 percent to 70 percent every year.
- Maintaining FISMA compliance The Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) mandates that every federal agency develop, document, and implement an agency-wide, risk-based information security program. An important part of that program requires agencies to have a data backup and storage system in place to ensure application and system continuity and recovery.
- COOP requirements The Office of Management and Budget requires COOP planning for every federal information system. This plan should address operational recovery issues, ranging from arrangements for a limited backup capability to relocation to a different facility in the event of a total failure.
- Less time to act on vulnerabilities Today the time in which administrators have to patch systems is shorter than ever, due to a diminishing vulnerability-to-exploit window. According to the most recent edition of the Internet Security Threat Report, released in September, in the first six months of 2005, the average time between the disclosure of a vulnerability and the release of an associated exploit was just six days.
The new face of backup and recovery
Historically, IT departments have been forced to choose between fast backups and quick recovery -- and "fast" could mean hours or days. Considering the pervasiveness and speed of today's threats and the growing amount of data that is put at risk, being faced with that choice is no longer acceptable. It is possible to have streamlined backup and recovery solutions that can work quickly and simultaneously. Here are some key features to look for to enable easier backup and recovery in the event that a disruption occurs:
- Easy administration and management Centralized and streamlined operations that allow IT staff to oversee backup and recovery functions for multiple locations. This reduces management time and gives the IT staff more time to focus on other issues.
- Comprehensive protection Files, drives, operating systems, software applications, settings, and preferences are maintained so that they are readily available following a disruption.
- No gaps Continuous, live protection will ensure that the data that is backed up is always up to date and systems are recovered to the proper state.
Conclusion
It is vital that government agencies and other public sector organizations get back online within minutes after an operating system failure, a hard drive failure, or virus attack. Security technology has evolved so that choosing between backup and recovery is no longer necessary. Finding continuous backup and fast recovery solutions that are easy to manage will not only save administrative headaches and time now, but it will save precious data and systems -- and possibly a huge financial burden -- later.
Stacey McDaniel has been writing about high-tech issues for more than six years.