INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Enterprise Security
Ensuring an always-
on business during the
holiday season
W
ith the vacation season
approaching in the Middle
East, employees in the
region are looking to either fly back
to their home countries or to holiday
destinations with cooler climes.
This does not mean, however, that
expectations of continuous access to
applications, services and data should
be lowered. In fact, times when
staff resources are low illustrate the
importance of the data centre and
availability, as any sign of downtime
could have a damaging impact on
revenue and repeat custom.
An always-on enterprise relies
on delivering 24/7 availability,
regardless of holidays, but what
happens if a critical system breaks
down when the IT team has gone
away? It will take longer than usual
to get systems running again, and
will in turn impact corporate revenue
and reputation.
www.intelligentcio.com
Gregg Petersen, Regional Director,
Middle East and SAARC at Veeam
Software says that for business
continuity to avoid downtime,
there are three simple precautions
enterprises should implement to
ensure that corporate applications,
services and data remain available
even if their employees are on
holiday.
Avoid downtime
It is no longer the case that planned
or unplanned downtime will not have
a direct impact on vital services,
whether it is revenue or reputation.
According to latest 2016 Veeam
Availability Report, organisations
experience unplanned downtime.
This downtime occurs more than
once a month on average, costing
organisations up to $16 million
annually in lost revenue (not to
mention the decreased productivity
and missed opportunities).
At a time when it is expected
that products and services should
be available at all times, both
unplanned and planned downtime
are deemed unacceptable, especially
since it is now easily avoidable.
Companies that experience their
systems crashing run the risk of
losing profit and productivity. A
modern business requires constant
and reliable data availability –
especially during the popular
holiday periods when staff levels are
significantly lower yet expectations
are the same, maybe even more.
Clean garbage data before
the holidays
Garbage data is a recognised
problem, and one that can have
the biggest impact on a firm’s
availability. Before employees log
off for long periods it is valuable
to clean up old data. Failure to
do this can eat up resources in
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