Tips

Tips

• Tips on setting up a DR/BC maintenance program

  A disaster recovery/business continuity maintenance program ensures that plans and other documentation are accurate and up to date.  Continue Reading

• WAN design: Building a resilient WAN

  This tip will help you spot potential WAN design problems before they escalate and show you how to boost resilience without sacrificing performance.  Continue Reading

• Dealing with failback problems

  Failback processes must be planned and tested in advance. This tip looks at issues that must be resolved before failing back to your primary location.  Continue Reading

• Wireless local area network backup and recovery

  Paul Kirvan offers wireless local area network (WLAN) backup and recovery tips to help you protect your investment in WLAN technology.  Continue Reading

• Conducting a damage assessment

  The damage assessment provides an initial view of the situation (what happened, what has been damaged, and potential for it to continue).  Continue Reading

• Tips for protecting hard-copy records

  Find out how to protect hard-copy records and what your business continuity/disaster recovery plan for vital documents should include.  Continue Reading

• Legal issues for business disaster recovery plans

  This tip will examine some of the legal issues you should consider in your business disaster recovery plan.  Continue Reading

• How to protect your infrastructure against a computer network attack

  Protecting your organization and its IT infrastructure from an intentional computer network attack requires technology, good practices and vigilance.  Continue Reading

• Removing a bad patch using Microsoft Windows Server Update Service

  This tip offers information about how to remove a bad software patch using Microsoft Microsoft Windows Server Update Service.  Continue Reading

• Business impact analysis (BIA) process basics

  The BIA process and risk assessment are critical steps for disaster recovery planning. This tip can help you get started with conducting a BIA.  Continue Reading

• Disaster recovery 101: Risk assessment process

  This tip offers risk assessment process basics to get your disaster recovery plan off the ground.  Continue Reading

• Tips for building a work area recovery center

  Learn how to determine if your business needs a work area recovery center and check out some options for building short-term and long-term solutions.  Continue Reading

• Emergency response notification systems and BCM software: An overview

  Learn about BCM software & emergency notification systems that can make it easier to use a BC plan.  Continue Reading

• Emergency notification system comparison and purchasing tips

  We’ll show you an emergency notification system comparison and share some tips on purchasing the right program for your organization.  Continue Reading

• Unshackling disaster recovery with WAN optimization products

  Learn about WAN optimization products specifically aimed at improving DR, and what you need to have in place before you deploy WAN optimization.  Continue Reading

• The advantages of server virtualization for disaster recovery

  Learn about the disadvantages and advantages of server virtualization as part of your disaster recovery strategy.  Continue Reading

• How CERT RMM can benefit BC plans, resilience management strategies

  With so many approaches to risk management and resilience management, it’s difficult to decide which approach and/or strategy to take. This tip examines how the use of a Resilience Management Model (RMM)—such as CERT RMM—can help you build a ...  Continue Reading

• Assessing your disaster recovery readiness with specialized tools

  Learn how disaster recovery readiness tools can help you document your IT environment, automate the discovery of hardware and software and, ultimately, improve your DR readiness.  Continue Reading

• A comparison of today's business continuity standards

  More business continuity standards are being added to an already crowded playing field. Learn how to determine which ones are most useful for your organization in this tip.  Continue Reading

• Replication technologies: Asynchronous vs. synchronous replication

  In this first part of our series on data replication techniques, learn about the differences between asynchronous vs. synchronous replication, and the pros and cons of each technology.  Continue Reading

• Array-based and network-based replication

  In the first part of our series on data replication techniques, you learned about the differences between asynchronous vs. synchronous replication. In part two, you will learn about array-based replication and network-based replication.  Continue Reading

• How to choose the best data replication product: A checklist

  Learn how to choose the best data replication product and print out our free, downloadable checklist.  Continue Reading

• Getting started with outsourcing disaster recovery sites

  Disaster recovery outsourcing can save you money, but follow these tips before you sign on the dotted line.  Continue Reading

• Call center disaster recovery plan checklists

  Learn about call center disaster recovery planning best practices, and read our call center checklists so you know what to include in your call center DR plan.  Continue Reading

• Network disaster recovery plan basics

  A good set of network documentation can prove to be valuable in the event of a disaster. Learn about what to document and make part of your network DR plan.  Continue Reading

• Enterprise risk management and business continuity primer

  Enterprise risk management is an important aspect of BC planning. This tip will help you understand risks, threats and vulnerabilities to build a foundation for your work.  Continue Reading

• A look at Linux disaster recovery options

  Linux is essential in many businesses, and the need for Linux disaster recovery has grown. Here's a look at the most common disaster recovery options for Linux.  Continue Reading

• Successful business continuity exercises and creating exercise scripts

  A business continuity exercise takes team members through different disaster recovery scenarios to test if they are fully prepared for an emergency. This tip describes how to set up a successful BC exercise.  Continue Reading

• The impact of ISO 31000 risk management standard on business continuity

  Learn about the new of ISO 31000 risk management standard and how you can leverage it to improve your business continuity management program.  Continue Reading

• A different approach to your business continuity management program

  Explore another way to organize a business continuity management (BCM) plan -- with advance knowledge of the risks and outcomes to be addressed -- in this tip.  Continue Reading

• Top five disaster recovery and business continuity books

  Are you new to business continuity or want to brush up on best practices? Learn about the top five business continuity books for veterans and those new to the profession.  Continue Reading

• Top 10 IT disaster recovery tips of 2010

  To help alleviate the problems that often arise with disaster recovery (DR) planning and testing, we've compiled our top 10 DR tips from 2010. Learn about cloud disaster recovery, DR maturity levels and more.  Continue Reading

• Hot sites and cold sites in disaster recovery planning

  Learn about the differences between hot sites and cold sites in disaster recovery planning in this tip.  Continue Reading

• Are cloud disaster recovery services viable for the enterprise?

  Learn about whether or not are cloud disaster recovery services are viable for your organization, and the pros and cons of public vs. private clouds.  Continue Reading

• Off-site disaster recovery: DR solutions for remote offices

  Learn how to find the right off-site disaster recovery solution for your remote or branch office.  Continue Reading

• Using storage clustering in disaster recovery environments

  Learn how to leverage clustered storage in your DR environment.  Continue Reading

• Developing an emergency evacuation planning strategy for your business continuity program

  It's critical to have a reliable and safe evacuation plan included in your DR/BC plan. Use these tables to construct one.  Continue Reading

• Disaster recovery site requirements: Building your own DR site

  Take these physical, operational and functional concerns into consideration before you build your own recovery site.  Continue Reading

• Facilities management guidelines for business continuity professionals

  If facilities management is integrated with other aspects of disaster recovery and business continuity, disasters may be more easily resolved.  Continue Reading

• Emergency management planning: What business continuity professionals need to know

  Learn about what goes into emergency management planning including activities, standards and best practices.  Continue Reading

• Fire suppression systems and your data center disaster recovery plan

  Fire suppression systems are important to have in case of a fire. Learn about the pros and cons of the most popular fire suppression systems in this tip.  Continue Reading

• IT disaster recovery preparation: A roadmap to DR readiness

  Learn about the most important things you need to do in order to fully prepare for disaster recovery in your data storage environment.  Continue Reading

• Common pitfalls in disaster recovery procedures

  In this tip, read about the five most common pitfalls in disaster recovery procedures.  Continue Reading

• Emergency notification systems in business disaster recovery planning

  In this tip, learn about different emergency notification system options for your DR plan.  Continue Reading

• Top five free disaster recovery plan templates

  Check out our compilation of the top five free disaster recovery (DR) plan templates. Download our free templates and then read our DR plan template guides.  Continue Reading

• Applying disaster recovery concepts to your supply chain management process

  The supply chain management process is critical for many organizations today. This tip explores how DR concepts fit into your SCM process.  Continue Reading

• Emergency power systems in data center disaster recovery planning

  Learn how to choose the best emergency power system for your data center disaster recovery plan.  Continue Reading

• Five steps to a business impact analysis in disaster recovery planning: BIA 101

  Follow these five steps for a better business impact analysis in your disaster recovery plan.  Continue Reading

• Disaster recovery documentation: The ultimate disaster recovery checklists

  Keeping track of all your DR and BC tasks and activities can be overwhelming. Here's a compilation of DR checklists to assist in your DR documentation.  Continue Reading

• How to determine the appropriate failover disaster recovery site: hot, cold or warm

  Choosing between a hot, cold or warm disaster recovery site can be difficult for many storage administrators. This tip will help you decide which is right for your facility.  Continue Reading

• Disaster recovery costs: Making testing and planning cost-effective

  DR can often seem daunting to many storage administrators because of its cost. Here are nine ways you can get more cost-effective disaster recovery.  Continue Reading

• Business risk assessments in IT disaster recovery planning

  Business risk assessments are an important factor in IT disaster recovery (DR) planning. Learn how they can help organizations identify and reduce potential threats, and ensure business continuity (BC).  Continue Reading

• Evaluating your disaster recovery program's maturity level

  Although many organizations have a DR plan in place, many are not mature or extensive enough. Learn how to evaluate your DR program's maturity level.  Continue Reading

• The pros and cons of IT disaster recovery outsourcing

  Outsourcing DR is becoming a popular option for many companies because of its lower cost. Learn about the pros and cons of outsourcing DR in this tip.  Continue Reading

• The importance of incident response plans in disaster recovery

  Incident response plans are essential in DR and BC because they give added protection to sensitive company data. But many companies do not have one.  Continue Reading

• Mapping COBIT and ITIL to your IT disaster recovery process

  COBIT and ITIL are two frameworks that provide measurable controls to assist you in reviewing your DR process.  Continue Reading

• Acquiring key personnel to maintain and update your disaster recovery plan

  Your organization must have the right group of people who will work together to choose the right tools to properly maintain and update your DR plan.  Continue Reading

• Creating a pandemic response for your disaster recovery plan

  As more and more people are affected by the H1N1 flu, companies need to include a pandemic response into their DR plans.  Continue Reading

• Disaster recovery plan basics: Updating and reviewing DR plans

  Each organization must decide when it is right to review and update their disaster recovery (DR) plan, but how do you know when it's right for your company?  Continue Reading

• Metrics for measuring business continuity management

  Metrics in tier one and tier two models can be used to measure business continuity performance, ensuring business processes are fulfilling company objectives.  Continue Reading

• The pros and cons of network-based data replication

  Learn about the pros and cons of network-based data replication for DR.  Continue Reading

• Is your disaster recovery (DR) plan out of date?

  Although many organizations initially implement DR plans, many neglect to update critical information to keep them running smoothly.  Continue Reading

• The importance of workforce continuity in a disaster recovery plan

  Strong workforce continuity is important to have in a disaster recovery (DR) plan. Companies must prepare employees for disasters in order for a DR plan to run smoothly.  Continue Reading

• Twelve tips for business continuity management in a recession

  Follow these 12 tips for the most successful business continuity management during a recession.  Continue Reading

• Disaster recovery planning fundamentals: DR testing basics

  A disaster recovery plan is useless unless your company goes through the right steps to test it.  Continue Reading

• Network access during the disaster recovery operations process

  Just as a working network is absolutely essential for normal business operations, the same is true during disaster recovery (DR) operations.  Continue Reading

• A sample disaster recovery network checklist procedure

  Because the goals of disaster recovery are time sensitive and critical, checklists make an ideal tool when faced with a situation where those plans get called into service.  Continue Reading

• Properly sizing your uninterruptible power supply for disaster recovery purposes

  If you ever had to try to figure out how big a UPS you need to provide temporary power for your IT equipment, you may have many questions; this tip sheds some light on the subject.  Continue Reading

• Disaster recovery strategies: Eight tips for better DR planning

  Achieving more reliable disaster recovery is still a challenge for most organizations. Learn eight tips for better DR planning in this tip.  Continue Reading

• Change management in disaster recovery and business continuity planning

  Change management is an important process for business continuity and disaster recovery planning for several reasons. Learn about change management best practices and its role in BC/DR planning.  Continue Reading

• Disk array-based data replication: The pros and cons

  Disk array-based data replication often seems like the simplest replication method with the least management overhead. Learn if it's right for your disaster recovery purposes.  Continue Reading

• The economic benefits of a hot site disaster recovery investment

  A vendor-hosted hot site for disaster recovery purposes is an expense that may be better managed via an internal hot site. Learn more about the economic benefits of a hot site disaster recovery investment.  Continue Reading

• Disaster recovery team planning: Guidelines on DR roles and training

  With the amount of standards surrounding business continuity (BC) and disaster recovery (DR), the roles personnel play in planning need to be established. Learn guidelines for establishing disaster recovery roles and training.  Continue Reading

• IBM Tivoli Storage Manager Disaster Recovery Manager best practices

  Learn about IBM Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM) Disaster Recovery Manager and how to set it up to automate disaster recovery and reduce the complexity of media management.  Continue Reading

• NFPA 1600 vs. BS 25999: Which is right for your business continuity program?

  The amount of business continuity standards has been growing rapidly in recent years. This tip discusses the NFPA 1600 and BS 25999 standards to help you determine which is best for your business.  Continue Reading

• Risk management for disaster recovery planning

  Disaster recovery (DR) planning is typically driven by risk management. This tip focuses on mitigating some of the risks associated with data and storage.  Continue Reading

• Using a tabletop exercise for disaster recovery planning

  A tabletop disaster recovery (DR) exercise provides a practical check list of procedures to follow during a disaster. Learn about the critical procedures and planning documents needed to ensure every disaster scenario has been covered in your ...  Continue Reading

• Including employees in your disaster recovery plan

  To really ensure business continuity, organizations need to protect and support employees while continuing to manage the business. This tip examines key issues that are affecting employees in business continuity and disaster recovery situations.  Continue Reading

• Disaster recovery planning for both internal threats and external threats

  Both internal threats and external threats can wreak havoc to even the best disaster recovery plan. Read important tips about why your disaster recovery plan needs to go deeper than just a business impact analysis.  Continue Reading

• Using business continuity templates for disaster recovery

  Formulating business continuity (BC) and disaster recovery (DR) plans requires a significant amount of time and effort. This tip explores how document templates can guide you through the disaster recovery planning process by providing ready-made ...  Continue Reading

• Top disaster recovery tips for protecting your VoIP systems

  Voice over IP (VoIP) technology is the principal technology for supporting converged or unified communications. This tip discusses how converging voice and data in an all-IP environment gives businesses cost-effective and flexible solutions that ...  Continue Reading

• Disaster recovery planning for mobile phone users

  Any disaster recovery plan that includes cell phone support must restore text messaging capabilities as well as email to text and text to email linking mechanisms. This tip discusses best practices for including mobile phones in your disaster ...  Continue Reading

• What you need in a disaster recovery (DR) plan

  Recent reports indicate that as many as half of all SMBs lack a business continuity (BC) or disaster recovery (DR) plan. This tip provides a list of items that companies often discover missing in their disaster recovery plans, policies, procedures ...  Continue Reading

• Top reasons why disaster recovery tests fail

  Too many disaster recovery (DR) plans end up being a documentation exercise and never rise above the day-to-day priorities of the business. This tip explores the top reasons why disaster recovery tests fail and how you can prevent these problems.  Continue Reading

• Disaster recovery planning strategies for email

  Email has become a mission-critical application. Loss of email access can result in lost revenue opportunities, missed contractual obligations and reduced employee productivity. This tip discusses best practices for ensuring email continuity.  Continue Reading

• Disaster recovery sites: How to choose the correct location

  There are no clear standards for choosing a disaster recovery (DR) site. So how do you determine the appropriate level of geographic diversity? This tip breaks down how to choose the correct location for your DR site.  Continue Reading

• Conducting a business impact analysis for SMBs

  A business impact analysis (BIA) can be the most daunting task in business continuity planning and its complexity sometimes overshadow its value to SMBs. This tip offers a simplified approach by focusing on the essential elements of a BIA.  Continue Reading

• How to create a Windows disaster recovery plan

  When disaster strikes, or site outages occur, there's absolutely no substitute for a carefully crafted, well-orchestrated and thoroughly tested disaster recovery (DR) or business continuity plan. The following list is a helpful reminder of the key ...  Continue Reading

• Outsourcing data storage considerations for SMBs

  Outsourcing data storage and backups is an effective way for small to midsized businesses (SMBs) to capitalize on IT without making the investment themselves. This tutorial provides a list for small to midsized businesses (SMBs) to consider when ...  Continue Reading

• How to create a business impact analysis for disaster recovery in 10 easy steps

  A business impact analysis (BIA) is crucial to a disaster recovery (DR) plan. This tip will identify the processes, systems and functions that are critical to a DR plan and help you allocate resources to ensure operational continuity during ...  Continue Reading

• Communication in the workplace during a disaster

  Effective communication can be crucial to a disaster recovery (DR) plan. In this tip, Leo A. Wrobel and Sharon M. Wrobel discuss best practices for ensuring effective communication with employees in the event of a disaster.  Continue Reading

• Disaster recovery site options

  When planning, setting up and operating a disaster recovery (DR) plan, having alternate sites for IT operations is critical. In this tip, Ed Tittel discusses the specific features, functions and costs of hot, warm, cold and mobile sites.  Continue Reading

• RAID levels and application suitability, Part one

  With disk protection for business data, one size does not fit all. Applications and the various categories of data within a given application require different levels of protection. This tip discusses the individual types, or levels of RAID, and how...  Continue Reading

• How to conduct a disaster recovery test

  This tip provides an overview of the benefits of disaster recovery testing and outlines important steps you need to consider.  Continue Reading

• How to establish a recovery time objective (RTO)

  This tip will help you to understand how to establish your critical applications' recovery time objective.  Continue Reading

• Risk management: Know your storage risks

  Risk management is a complex discipline and covers a broad area ranging from business and operational risk to the more focused IT risk. This tip narrows down the focus to specifically identifying data storage risk.  Continue Reading