Distributed Systems Strategy

A majority of the publications concerning IT service recovery focus on the recovery of the central IT facility. This historical focus derives from the mainframe architecture typical of customers interested in business continuity.

The distributed architecture paradigm shift has drastically increased the complexity of IT service recovery for an organization.

Increased Documentation Volume

Any IT service recovery process depends on the quality of the documentation. Replacing equipment destroyed in a disaster requires up-to-date inventories of the hardware and software, configuration settings, etc. needed to rebuild the environment. The distributed architecture's replacement of the mainframe with smaller computers means more documentation to create and maintain.

The New IT Service Recovery Model

Other than for central operations, the reasons for a central facility have all but disappeared. A majority of the equipment works just fine on someone's desk. Most communications equipment ends up distributed through the wiring closet. Physical security requirements mandate "secure" facilities, not "central" facilities.

The organization has become the "IT facility." Business continuity planning has adapted to this shift by focusing on an IT service recovery model. The model works, but it increases the number of technical decisions documented in the business continuity planning process. The increased technical content increases the number of trained personnel who have to be involved in the planning process. At a certain point, no one individual has the ability to review the validity of the plan's contents.

Blurring Roles

Lower equipment prices place more services and applications within reach of a business unit's operating budget. Today's business environment involves more IT purchases within the business units than within the central IT department.

Most organizations that have experienced a disaster uncover mission-critical business units dependent on self- acquired IT services lost in the disaster. There are methods to combat this issue, but all of them increase the complexity of the business recovery planning process within the organization.