Disaster Recovery Journal, Spring 2007 World Tradeshow

Orlando, Florida

These past few days I've spent some time at the DRJ Spring 2007 tradeshow with our friends from ioSafe, engineers and manufacturers of disaster proof hardware. While the tradeshow was attended primarily by Business Continuity professionals (many with the esteemed ABCP or MBCP certification) from around the world, I found the event this year (like years past) to be of benefit and great importance to business professionals at all levels.

From my perspective I view all of the operational systems of a business as important to continuity and disaster recovery - IT environments and access to mission critical data are important to the business process - just like the real people working. Compared to Fall 2006 show there were far more IT vendors present - including IBM, HP, ioSafe, and even eVault. Certainly a testament to the growing importance of business continuity planning.


Tradeshow Spotlight
There were many companies that caught my eye this year and below you will learn a bit more about twoof these companies who, in my humble opinion, are really on the cutting edge of business continuity processes and developments.

COOP Systems - Business Continuity Software
Web based BCP software from COOP Systems is the cream of the crop for functionality, ease of use , and TCO. I had the luxury of getting a demonstration from some of the senior analysts at COOP Systems and was very impressed with the how easy it was to navigate and find answers to common questions. The Business Impact Analysis (BIA) and risk data collection features are very thorough and helpful to BC and DR planners who identify and mitigate risks at an enterprise level. Add in the customization aspect, available in real time, and you'll probably seriously consider choosing COOP Systems.

Try it our for yourself with a Demo or Free Trial by contacting Christy Downs at
christydowns@coop-systems.com
freetrial@coop-systems.com



eVault, a Seagate Company
Most companies use a combination of on-site and off-site data backup and recovery strategies. eVault stands out as one of the true disk-to-disk online backup companies that will easily help you achieve automated, hassle-free data protection. With solutions for small businesses and the largest of enterprises the eVault system can also assist any company in demonstrating compliance for the multitude of Federal Regulations set forth for security and data recoverability. E.g. Security and access control, as well as data recovery in the event of a disaster (computer crash, computer virus, server crash, fire, flood, etc.)

Online backup (like any single method) does have it’s drawbacks –while business critical data backed up online gives you the benefit of off-site recovery, your recovery point objective and recovery time objective can be quite large (to those not familiar with RPO and RTO this means that you may only be able to recover data from yesterday if you are not utilizing a continuous data protection method or CDP). Minimizing the RTO and RPO are very important to many businesses – so it’s always a best business practice to implement some sort of continuous data protection (CDP) strategy that is up to the minute, if not real time.

Something that I found quite interesting about eVault is the level of customer service and service level agreements offered in their programs – IT solutions coupled with complete consulting services. Couple that with the high availability of disk to disk backup (and greater reliability than tapes) and it’s no wonder why so many businesses choose eVault.



In a Nutshell

All things considered the DRJ show was certainly a treat for me. When looking at the big picture for business continuity, every product or service is simply insurance. Whether you are a small business or large enterprise there will always be a preferred plan that is best for your environment - but I truly believe that it's important to consider all aspects of operational activities for business continuity and disaster recovery. The times are changing quickly and soon BC and DR professionals will need a complete understanding of not only business processes, but also IT environments and data backup and recovery strategies.


For those of you that are new to Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery, the DRJ trade shows are certainly one of the best places to start learning how to tackle these very important business tasks from both an operational and disaster recovery perspective. There ARE ways to meet short and long term business goals, tackle budget concerns, and even regulatory compliance issues – you’ll find out how with a visit to the DRJ Spring or Fall World Shows.

To learn more about becoming a participant or exhibitor at the upcoming DRJ show in San Diego, CA visit http://www.drj.com/