Resilient Businesses Move Their Individuals to The Fog up

Every year, as the Atlantic hurricane season approaches many businesses have a nagging realization that they are in danger due to a catastrophic “Black Swan inch event. Black Swan events are a constant source of risk in states like Florida where many communities are susceptible to trouble due to coast thunder or wind storms. This risk is specially serious for businesses that depend on the storage of on-line data if there is an opportunity their critical data could become lost or dangerous. But the threat from Black Swan events isn’t limited to Florida, nor is it limited to large scale bothersome events like hurricanes. The black swan theory or theory of black swan events describes a bothersome event that comes as a surprise, has a major effect, and is often wrongly rationalized after the fact with the benefit of hindsight. The term is based on a historical saying which presumed black swans did not exist, but the saying was rewritten after black swans were discovered in the wild. Consider the following scenario…

“We tend to consider disasters in terms of the attacks on the World Trade Center, Hurricane Katrina, or other ultra events. Sometimes, however, less notable events occur that can have a catastrophic influence on a business. In February 1981, a power fire in the cellar of the State Office building in Binghamton, New york, spread throughout the cellar of the building setting fire to a transformer containing over a thousand gallons of toxin-laden oil. Originally viewed as PCBs, the toxins were soon determined to contain dioxin and dibenzofuran, two of the very most dangerous chemicals ever created. The fire was smoky and quickly filled the 18-story building with smoke. As the transformer burned, the soot entered the buildings setting up shafts and quickly spread toxic soot throughout theSEO ลิงก์ย้อนกลับ building. The building was so badly infected that it took 13 years and over $47 million to clean before the building could be reentered or used. Because of the nature of the fire, the building and its contents, including all paper records, computers, and personal effects of the people who worked there, just weren’t recoverable. This type of event would be irrecoverable for many businesses. inch — Operations Required research, Published by McGraw Mountain

What affect would a catastrophic hurricane that affected an entire region or a local bothersome event like a fire have on the operation of your business? Could you survive that kind of being interrupted or loss? As the dependence on on-line data has exploded in virtually every type of business, so has the risk that loss of their data could break up the operation of the business and even result in its complete failure. In respond to these dangers, there’s been an development in the approaches used to mitigate these risks as the volume of on-line data has continued to grow. Originally, the concept of Disaster Recovery (DR) emerged as a mitigation strategy that focused on the recovery of critical data following a bothersome event giving the business the ability to restore damaged IT operations.

Disaster Recovery (DR) involves some policies and procedures that enable the restoration of critical business data and allows the IT structure to be reconditioned to a earlier state. DOCTOR was originally viewed as the domain of the IT department who have been given responsibility for mitigating the risk. To reduce the risk, system backups were scheduled frequently and aggressive DOCTOR plans that included server cold start procedures and data backups were implemented.

The goal was to revive the structure to the last point where the data had been supported (at the time, typically on tape). The acceptable DOCTOR practices at the time allowed the IT system to be rebooted when the facility power was finally reconditioned… Unless it was in a flood zone or the off-site backup storage facility had already been impacted. In any case, the operation of the facility could potentially be damaged for some period of time and the data restoration was also potentially in danger depending on where backups were stored.

Now let’s roll the appointments ahead… As technology evolved so did the Disaster Recovery strategies, which lead to new concepts that evolved to the requirements for a Business Continuity solution as an approach of mitigating risk. Still viewed as the domain of computer, as technology moved towards solutions like shadow servers, distributed data locations and high speed bulk data transmission with hyper connection. Data no longer must be “recovered”, it just must be connected in distributed locations where it could be remotely accessed. Business Continuity mitigated the risk of data loss and allowed a business to recover much more quickly and efficiently from a Black Swan event because its servers never went completely down.

Business Continuity originally encompassed planning and preparation to ensure that an organization’s IT structure always been in one piece enabling the business to efficiently recover to an in business state within a reasonably little while following a Black Swan event. Technology today has evolved towards fog up solutions that put the data and the applications into remote “cloud” locations so it appears to be the IT responsibility for mitigating the risk of on-line data loss or file corruption has been sorted. With highly connected, fully distributed solutions, some people desire for business continuity may be fading in criticality. Nothing could be further from the truth…

The fact is the risk was never solely in losing the data but losing the businesses capacity to operate. There are businesses that cannot accept any trouble to their operations. These include healthcare, insurance, and communications companies, critical logistic suppliers, transportation providers and local governments. It is during Black Swan events that the goods these firms provide may be most needed. The prerequisites of other, less critical businesses, whoever operations could be interrupted for days or even weeks, but who might face a significant financial risk, may also make their continued operation a matter of corporate success.

Modern tools has completely abstracted business processing and data from the user by moving critical IT infrastructures into the fog up. Fog up technology enables users to work from remote locations, but use of the fog up doesn’t fully mitigate in business risk. It means people have at the moment replaced computers as the critical way to continued operations. The operation of the business is more likely to be interrupted because key personnel aren’t ready to sustain operations during a Black Swan event. They don’t have a facility that has been proactively planned to support operations during bothersome events that could last all night, days or weeks. Particularly in areas like Florida, where large natural disasters such as hurricanes can break up services to entire communities, resilient businesses need to prepare in advance for sustained operations during a bothersome event. The ability of a business to continue its operations during times of distress are a measure of the businesses resiliency.

Business Resiliency: takes business continuity to another level because it makes it the domain of operations management rather than leaving it solely as the domain of the IT Department. When planning for disaster recovery or business continuity the critical link is now the people who are needed to operate critical systems remotely. Yes, there are occasions where staff can work from home or from remote facilities the business may operate, however, this is not always a reasonable answer and even when it is, businesses often find themselves striving to play catch up, racking your brains on who what and “how can we practice it under these circumstances” situations. During Black Swan events including regional interferences like hurricanes or local interferences such as shoots, many of the people the business depends on may not have power, internet or even a phone needed in order to work from home. Because you can’t put people in the fog up, Business Resiliency requires planning, training and practice which means your staff knows how and when to mobilize.

Resilient businesses integrate Black Swan response into their continuing operations so that, when they are essential, at a time when the business and the people are under stress, everyone knows how to respond efficiently and effectively and where to go to provide that response. Business resiliency requires a dedicated facility that has been solidified to withstand Black Swan events and has been designed to give you the support services the people and the IT structure will both need. Business resiliency requires aggressive planning and the integration of operating procedures into the businesses standard operating plans to include remote operations by trained critical staff who have been mobilized to respond during bothersome events and it requires aggressive practice to ensure that, when remote operations are essential, the people are positioned.