FEATURE: BUSINESS CONTINUITY
The manufacturing sector is quickly moving
towards the point where virtually everything
will depend on digital technology. In
a fast-moving and highly competitive
environment, making the best use of digital
– and acting on the insights it delivers –
could be core to securing a place in the
future. However, while digital presents
incredible opportunities, it also presents
greater challenges than ever before.
With great power comes
great responsibil-IT
Manufacturers’ growing dependence on
digital is putting IT teams under enormous
pressure to ensure Business Continuity.
However, the sheer scale and complexity
of manufacturers’ digital lives makes this a
growing challenge.
Data growth in itself presents potential
pitfalls, from determining where and how it is
stored to ensuring it is properly protected and
quickly recoverable in the event of a disaster.
IT teams are also faced with significant
external threats. Cyberattacks are
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found this approach increasingly unfeasible,
due to the cost of purchasing additional
tape drives, the risk of human error and
the lengthy process for data recovery. All
of these factors make ensuring Business
Continuity a challenging undertaking.
The damage of downtime
Added to these pressures is the fact
that any IT downtime can be extremely
damaging for manufacturing businesses,
where uninterrupted access to equipment,
applications, data and processes is vital.
Outages at any point in the process can
cause havoc further down the line, and
have knock on effects on staff morale,
customer loyalty and business reputation.
The financial damage, both in immediate
loss and opportunity cost, can be widespread
and long-lasting.
As a result, the business’ demands for
recovery are high. Manufacturing companies
are especially vulnerable to an availability
gap, where the IT team cannot meet the
recovery requirements of the business.
ENSURING THE AVAILABILITY OF DATA
AND APPLICATIONS MUST BE THE
MAIN IMPERATIVE OF THE BUSINESS
CONTINUITY PLAN.
increasingly prolific and sophisticated; the
WannaCry ransomware attack of last year
underlines the sheer scale of the damage
that an attack can do. This is not uncommon across all industries;
80% of IT decision makers suffer from an
availability gap, resulting in total costs of
US$21.8 million per year.
The growing use of connected devices and
the IoT is creating even more points of
entry for IT teams to manage, especially if
employees use their own devices. But in a sector where continuous operations
are critical, Business Continuity must be a
particular imperative.
Old backup technology can also present
a serious hindrance. Volvo Car Benelux,
for example, had relied on individual
dealerships backing up their physical servers
on site to tape. However, the organisation
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INTELLIGENTCIO
Delivering data availability in
four steps
Data availability then must be a priority for
manufacturers. But how can IT teams deliver
it in practice?
1. Create a viable Business
Continuity plan
While creating a strategy for data availability
may seem straightforward, it’s incredible
how many plans seem adequate until
they’re tested – and fail. IT teams must
develop a strategy that protects every
critical business unit across the supply
chain, without negatively impacting the
experiences of employees or partners. Once
the plan and relevant systems are in place,
stress test it regularly to identify any pain
points before a disaster takes place.
2. Manage your data intelligently
Ensuring the availability of data and
applications must be the main imperative
of the Business Continuity plan. That means
using solutions designed to address the
continuity challenges of highly virtualised and
cloud-enabled manufacturing environments.
Selecting a data availability solution that
can achieve a recovery time of less than
15 minutes for all applications and data
should meet the requirements of most
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