1.2 The Need for Business Continuance

Data storage lies at the epicenter of corporate mission-critical applications. Given this essential organizational function, there is no time for gaps in storage availability. The data storage infrastructure acts as an information source for customers, partners , and employees , and they all expect access anywhere , anytime .

Downtime, as it is typically referred to when IT systems become unavailable for whatever reason, was once accepted as a necessary evil in dealing with computers. Today availability has taken over, with a range of modifiers from "high," to "24/7," to that additional stretch of "24/7/365." Perhaps our next sustained availability window will broach a decade ! But downtime has real consequences, both in terms of business or revenue lost and the goodwill of any human contact in the disrupted exchange. An interrupt of a back-office database replication might delay the launch of a new service, but the replication software doesn't mind trying again...immediately. Yet, a corrupted On-Line Tranaction Processing (OLTP) exchange with a Web visitor could result in a lost transaction and a lost customer.

In either case, as measured in short term or long, faulty data storage translates to lost business and productivity. Expectations on business continuity go beyond simple customer expectations to a measure of corporate competence. Combating this potential black mark, companies have moved to implement business continuity plans, ranging from system-level redundancy and backups within the data center to sophisticated off-site protection schemes that replicate mission-critical data instantly.

Business continuity comes packed with dozens of questions about its defined meaning. Do we need 24/7 availability? How long can we afford to be down? Are we protected from system failure, site failure, and natural disasters? What data are we trying to protect, and why? Who is involved? Where should our second site be located? These questions underscore the complexity of a well-executed business continuity plan. The first step to executing such a plan is having the appropriate tools. When it comes to data storage, a networked storage environment provides the easiest way to get on track to a highly available storage environment.