Business Continuity Services - Keeping Information Available

 

"As a company that offers a wide range of business continuity solutions, we stand ready to help you and your organization examine your current solution or help develop a solution to mitigate risks and protect the financial assets of your company in the event of unplanned downtime."

 

The highlights of our offerings include:

 

  • Testing Only – Entry level offering that allows for annual off-site testing at a remote data center to improve documentation and verify procedures. This is an excellent method for testing current back-up procedures and modifying or changing procedures for a more effective result.  This is a great method to train secondary contacts for redundancy.

 

  • Facilities Subscription – Provides for access to a state-of-the-art data center designed to help speed recovery of business critical data. This also includes testing as described above and provides assistance of experienced technical resources to speed the recovery process and reduce downtime.  With 7x24x365, this site is ready “when” and “if” you need it in case of critical downtime.

 

  • Redundancy Subscription – Involves use of synchronization software for high availability and allows for the greatest protection of critical financial assets and the least amount of downtime. Data can be synchronized to a Strategic Data Center or to another remote site as desired. This offering includes items in the Facilities and Testing options shown above.

 

  • Remote Back-Up – Allows inexpensive method of getting critical back-up data off-site as needed for emergency retrieval and is stored on a short-term basis.

 

  • Colocation – Provides for client-owned equipment to be located at a Strategic Data Center for use in a disaster scenario.  Equipment is housed in a secure data center with 7x24x365 access.

 

  • Audit – Provides for review and verification of current plan using best practices methods, and can create a framework for plan improvement and basis from which to test.  Current procedures for backup are reviewed as a part of this process.

 

Information security has never been more visible or vulnerable than it is today. For the first time in our economic history we realize there is much more to worry about than a system disaster or an occasional natural disaster. We have seen acts of terrorism, employee sabotage, and even computer hackers bring companies to a standstill. The threats are real and the need to address them is immediate. Yet the choices for help in planning for and recovering from downtime is few, especially if you require experts in midrange and distributed computing. Strategic Continuity Services has the know-how, the facilities, and the experience to make the solution and implementation happen; and with our team of experts help you prepare for any type of downtime or disruption.

 

Strategic Continuity Services delivers business continuity services for midrange and distributed computing environments. We combined the three P's of business continuity - the people, the place, and the process - into a custom capability exclusively focused on the continuity and recovery needs of companies of all sizes.

 

If you are one of the many companies facing a tight budget for 2009 and looking for ways to improve efficiency, reduce costs and get more from your technology investment….. it may be time to consider Outsourcing or Hosting some or all of your applications or services.

 

 

RPO defines the point in a data stream to which you need to recover information i.e. the maximum amount of data that you could lose if a process is interrupted and later recovered.

 

 

RTO defines how quickly you need to recover failed applications i.e. the period of time in which the organization intends to have the interrupted process running again.

 

 

Maximum Tolerable Dowtime (MTD) is the maximum length of time a business process can be interrupted or available without causing the business to fail. For each process in the BIA you need to determine its maximum tolerable dowtime (MTD).

A Risk Assessment is a multi-step process of identifying and quantifying threats that could disrupt the business’ performance, and determines the probabilities and probable consequences of each threat. A Risk Assessment help determine whether you should ignore a threat, how much you should spend in taking action to reduce a threat, or whether you should plan for the recovery of the operations if the threat occurs.

 

BIA is a detailed inventory of the primary processes, systems, assets, people, and suppliers that are associated with an organization's principle business activities. The core purpose of BIA is to identify which processes and systems are the most critical to the survival of an organization.

Executive Sponsorship is an important component in getting support and understanding of the need for an Enterprise Plan. In most cases, Information Technology bears the brunt of the pressure when a business disruption occurs. While IT is a critical infrastructure component this strategic department cannot ensure the ability of the Enterprise to be successful in a recovery or business continuation mode.

 

Consultive Testing is included with facilities subscription and allows for two-day intensive examination of procedures and current documentation. It is recommended a follow up test be done in 90 days to confirm and modify documentation as needed.

 

 

Web-based documentation - access to critical documentation is available online at all times through secure web access to allow review and updates as needed to keep the document current.

Whether your Business Continuity Plan (BCP) is 5GB or on a few sheets of paper, Strategic can review and audit the BCP to ensure critical elements are included and consideration is given to key infrastructure matters. This will help improve likelihood of a successful recovery and can provide “near-real life” disaster experiences to prepare you to mitigate and manage risk.

 

 

 

Colocation allows subscribers to locate hardware at a secure Strategic Data Center and provides for prearranged access for authorized personnel.

 

 

 

Remote backup offers a level of protection for critical data and offers improved data protection.

 

Redundancy provides the greatest level of protection and reduces downtime to minutes. Also eliminates the need to count on media that could be compromised or backups that could be incomplete. Allows for the use of many configuration options to offer the desired level of redundancy.

 

Facilities subscription reduces the amount of downtime due to business disruption and provides immediate access to a secure Strategic Data Center and highly trained technical personnel. Typically a three to five year contract that includes annual testing and a Consultive Test engagement.

 

Testing can be used as an assessment tool to determine readiness and training needs. In the event of a disaster or business disruption this subscription does not provide for use of the Data Center. Business disruptions are not the time to find the gaps in the plan.

 

 

Used in IBM midrange environments and commonly used with an integrated database, Strategic has the expertise and resources to help improve your success.

 

 

Typically used in an IBM server environment we stand ready to help you design, test, and implement a plan to protect your critical data using AIX.

We facilitate the recovery of this increasingly popular server operating system as well. Variants of the Linux operating system that we support include Red Hat, SuSe, and others depending on your needs. Strategic Continuity Services can assist you in planning this recovery to protect critical data and get back up and going in the least amount of time.

 

 

A recovery method used by many organizations that allows for Windows Servers to be recovered within the shortest possible timeframe.

 

 

We support the recovery of any Enterprise level Windows server ranging from Windows Server 2003, Small Business Server, the latest Windows Server 2008, and many more.

 

 

Regardless of the of the brand or type of hardware, we offer a wide range of options for companies of all sizes with products from from IBM, Dell, HP, EMC, and numerous others.

 

 

 

While an overwhelming task Strategic Continuity Services can help guide you every step of the way.