Intelligent CIO Africa Issue 06 | Page 42

FEATURE: BUSINESS CONTINUITY FEATURE: BUSINESS CONTINUITY Having a pay-per-use model that sits offsite is more cost-effective and easier to manage for businesses. They’re after ease of use regarding backup, disaster recovery and the larger business continuity and availability practice. and as such, companies need to consider the 3-2-1 rule for proper data availability. The 3-2-1 rule states that there should be three different copies of data on two different types of media, one of which is off-site. Business continuity plans should no longer be optional Regional power outages, especially extended outages that impact telecommunications infrastructure, is a disaster threat specific to developing countries. One of the most significant recent threats is ransomware that aims to elicit funds from companies in exchange for access to their data. Veeam’s Regional Manager for Africa, Claude Shuck, talks to Intelligent CIO about the importance of a business continuity plan for African organisations. T documentation; capacity planning and ‘what if’ modelling; and backup and virtual infrastructure monitoring and reporting. If done correctly, a business continuity plan should give decision-makers the peace of mind that the company can failover to a different site in the event of a crisis or disaster. A business continuity plan should prioritise offsite replication with traffic optimisation and advanced capabilities; easier disaster recovery orchestration and recovery testing; infrastructure assessment and There will always be a balancing act performed in the data centre with regards to levels of availability and the associated costs. The CIO today needs to have discussions with the business leaders of the organisation to ensure that the services delivered in the data centre meet the needs and expectations of the stakeholders. Putting this perspective on the business leaders will allow technology management to obtain the funding needed. he ability to maintain operations in the event of natural disasters, cyberattacks and extreme weather conditions is a crucial part of securing business stability and reputation as well as data and security. 42 INTELLIGENTCIO What’s at risk? Data has become the currency of the always-on economy. Not having an effective business continuity plan in place to safeguard it from loss, theft, or compromise, could see an organisation suffer significant financial and reputational damage. The 2017 Veeam Availability Report reveals the true impact of downtime on businesses. While downtime costs vary, the data shows that the average annual cost of downtime for each organisation surveyed in the study amounts to R270- million (companies surveyed had an average size of 7,500 employees). www.intelligentcio.com Downtime and data loss are also causing enterprises to face public scrutiny, in ways that cannot be measured by a balance sheet. This year’s study shows that almost half of enterprises see a loss of customer confidence and 40% experienced damage to brand integrity, which affect both brand reputation and customer retention. Looking at internal implications, a third of respondents see diminished employee confidence and 28% have experienced a diversion of project resources to ‘clean up’ the mess. The spate of global malware attacks should be the impetus every organisation needs to review its business continuity strategy and ensure it remains always-on in the event of a crisis, irrespective of its origin. Businesses must assume it is a case of when an attack will happen, not if. Budget cuts will become more prevalent among businesses operating in African countries entering a recession or those experiencing slow economic growth. Companies will start putting cost cutting measures in place, however this doesn’t mean the responsibility of a business continuity plan and testing should go away. Investing in solutions Regional threats Hardware failure remains one of the biggest disaster threats for businesses www.intelligentcio.com At Veeam, we see a huge focus on cloud and service provider technologies. They have input in almost every new product feature, and our business lines in this regard are among our strongest growth areas. Unsurprisingly, cloud and its various consumption models are changing the way businesses approach data protection. Investments in Backup as a Service (BaaS) and Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) are expected to rise similarly as organisations combine them with cloud. Veeam Cloud Connect makes it easy for Veeam customers to extend their backup infrastructure to the cloud and makes it easy for service providers to offer hosted backup repositories or complete backup services with Veeam. In addition, Veeam has introduced a consumption-based model where customers can now purchase services from Veeam as they need on a monthly to quarterly basis. This model heralds a shift to purchasing availability on a ‘pay- per-play’ basis that is determined by usage. Having a pay-per-use model that sits offsite is more cost-effective and easier to manage for businesses. They’re after ease of use regarding backup, disaster recovery and the larger business continuity and availability practice. Veeam’s solutions are effectively in use by National Disaster Management Centre. The NDMC coordinates disaster preparedness programmes and relief services in South Africa. It assesses every possible risk throughout the country and prepares a corresponding plan for disaster recovery and its IT staff has a INTELLIGENTCIO 43