December 21 is a Point of Demarcation for Improved Disaster Recovery
Today, December 21st, marks the official launch of AmeriVault's new ReStartIT-VDR and ReStartIT-HA services. Though December 21st is primarily marked in the annals of history as the day when the Mayflower landed at Plymouth, MA, for AmeriVault in particular and small and midsize businesses (SMBs) in general, it may well serve as a point of demarcation in terms of changing how businesses can expect to restart their IT operations using AmeriVault's services should a disaster occur.
The spectrum of disasters that may impact a company's IT operations is vast. Though the number of natural disasters is fairly finite - blizzards, earthquakes, fires, floods, hurricanes and tornados, to name a few - there is an almost an infinite number of minor disasters that are just as disruptive to IT operations, such as broken water pipes, defective air conditioners, overloaded electrical circuits or an out of control car crashing into the side of your computer room. Any of these disasters can force a company with minimal or no warning to abruptly move and restart their IT operations at another location just to stay in business.
However anyone involved in corporate operations understands that the trials and tribulations involved with configuring, setting up and then managing an alternative site is no trivial task. Aside from the costs associated with setting up a disaster recovery (DR) site, other intangible factors that come into play include:
· Who takes the lead in a DR scenario?· Who takes the lead if that person is not available?
· Who is responsible for funding for the DR site?
· What if there is inadequate funding to recover certain applications at the DR site?
· Who tests the recovery of applications and how often?
· How quickly do you need to recover your business?
· Can your DR site support multiple recovery points? If not, do you need and can you afford to change your DR configuration?
· What if it is a partial disaster and you only need to recover some of your applications at your DR site? Do you fail everything over or just the affected applications?
These are just some of the types of questions and scenarios that businesses need to ask and account for when building out and maintaining a separate DR site. However these questions and issues are by no means an exhaustive list. Unfortunately what too often occurs is that for any company who takes the time to thoroughly examine the issue, they will almost inevitably decide that the costs and headaches associated with building out a separate DR facility gives them no more assurance of a safe recovery than doing nothing.
This is why the new ReStartIT-VDR and -HA services from AmeriVault make so much sense for so many businesses. For about $25,000 a year, a business with 300 GB of production data can introduce a level of business continuity and application recovery that previously was available only to companies with DR budgets of millions of dollars and dedicated staff.
Using AmeriVault's new ReStartIT services, companies can restart their corporate applications at AmeriVault's data center while employees work from home and access their applications running at AmeriVault's site through secure Internet links. AmeriVault even offers an option where companies can take advantage of AmeriVault's partnership with Agility Recovery Solutions. Agility Recovery Solutions delivers mobile recovery trailers, replacement hardware and telecom so businesses can recover their IT operations within 48 hours. AmeriVault synchronizes data recovery for a complete data-to-desktops solution.
December 21st, 2007, is a day when most of us are looking forward to a few days off and celebrating Christmas with friends and family. However for those looking forward to the promise of how to better protect one's business, today's launch of AmeriVault's ReStartIT starts to deliver on those promises a few days early.
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