IT CONTINUITY:
BASIC RESOURCES

In this section you can find an overview of all the basic IT continuity resources added to this website recently.

Clustered storage vs. storage virtualization: is there a winner?
Philip Crocker compares the two storage solutions.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Extensible threat management
Extensible threat management is the next generation of unified threat management. This article provides an overview of XTM and explains its advantages over UTM..
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Monitoring for effective data protection
Barriers are not enough; data protection requires a systematic risk based approach.
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•Type: Article •Region: UK •Level: Basic
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Protecting virtual infrastructures with data replication
What is the best way to protect virtual servers and keep them highly available?
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•Type: Article •Region: UK/Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Protecting critical data from loss or theft
It’s a matter of due diligence says Dr. Jim Kennedy.
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•Type: Article •Region: US/Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Unified storage – more than just SAN/NAS
There is only one way to produce an effective, affordable, user-friendly unified storage solution says Stefan Schaefer.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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‘Self-service’ storage: has its moment arrived?
What are the requirements for enabling a self-service storage environment in the data center?
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•Type: Article •Region: US/Worldwide •Level: Basic
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The impact of the consumerization of IT on IT security management
Alexei Lesnykh highlights new threats and solutions.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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The importance of the network in IT disaster recovery planning
Too many companies are inadequately prepared to deal with adverse events relating to their business and network operations, says Dr. Jim Kennedy.
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•Type: Article •Region: US/Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Business critical email system protection using data replication
Ian Masters overviews the advantages of using data replication for email continuity.
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•Type: Article •Region: UK/Worldwide •Level: Basic
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How to safely virtualize your IT environment
Virtualization presents risks as well as benefits; Nick Turnbull, provides a list of items that businesses need to consider before virtualizing their environments.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Using virtualization to reduce your RTOs
For disaster recovery professionals, virtualization is particularly promising as a tool to help reduce recovery time objectives. Jack Wade explains.
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•Type: Article •Region: US/Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Cyber crime threatens the core infrastructure supporting critical business activities
Tapping into fibre optic cables is easier than you think!
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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The IT disaster recovery plan
Carl Bradbury, MBCI, provides a very useful overview of the process of creating and testing effective IT disaster recovery plans.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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How to select a password management system
‘Envelope technology’ and the story about the ‘never changing password’: by Oded Valin.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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How unified encryption management (UEM) is changing the threat landscape
Increasing challenges to corporate networks and data requires a new risk management approach.
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•Type: Article •Region: UK •Level: Basic
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Why data protection must be central to any business continuity plan
Chris Ross explains why a data protection strategy and backup regime are vital aspects of business continuity plans.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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What happened to ILM?
Information lifecycle management seems to have lost its status as a ‘hot topic’ but does that mean that the concept has been rejected? Steve Tongish investigates.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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IT disaster recovery planning – choosing the right backup strategy
Eric Schott provides advice for those new to IT continuity.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Virtual servers; real problems
How do you gain the benefits of virtualization without opening your business up to failures and outages?
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Managing the life cycles of backups
Backup data has its own lifecycle and it needs to be managed to maximize IT resources.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Is IT security missing the mark?
Data loss and theft continues to create business continuity problems – is this partly due to companies focusing resources on the wrong areas of IT security? By Dr. Jim Kennedy.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Demystifying data de-duplication: choosing the right solution
This article examines eight key criteria to use when evaluating data de-duplication solutions.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Will your computing facilities survive a heatwave?
This article provides a simple checklist of actions which can reduce the risk of heat-induced downtime.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Storage virtualization: enabling better business continuity
It is important for BCM professionals from both sides of the business-IT divide to understand the benefits of virtualization in the data storage space, says Steve Beck.
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•Type: Article •Region: UK/Worldwide •Level: Basic
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The clustered revolution: a paradigm shift in the storage industry
Sujal Patel plots the evolution to clustered storage.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Duplicating the success of data deduplication
How local instance networking overcomes disaster recovery difficulties associated with single instance storage.
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•Type: Article •Region: UK/Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Why virtual machines need virtual storage
The ability to move live running virtual machines between servers presents some interesting new challenges from a storage perspective.
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•Type: Article •Region: UK/Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Data virtualisation: the basis of file area networking
File area networking offers opportunities for managing data availability. Paul Phillips overviews the technology…
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•Type: Article •Region: UK/Worldwide •Level: Basic
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IT security – the challenges and opportunities of cultural diversity and dispersed teams
Security policies must address changing modes of communications and business practises.
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•Type: Article •Region: UK/Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Asking the right question: penetration testing vs. vulnerability analysis tools, which is best?
By Dennis Hurst, developer security evangelist, SPI Dynamics.
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Seven reasons why Serial Attached SCSI will be the new enterprise storage standard
A white paper supplied by Infortrend Corporation.
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The rise of SSL VPNs
The growth of Secure Sockets Layer virtual private networks (SSL VPNs) has accelerated in the last 12 months. Ian Kilpatrick explains why this is happening…
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•Date: 24th April 2007• Region: World •Type: Article •Topic: IT continuity
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Interpreting the results of a vulnerability assessment: how to focus on what’s important in your Web application security testing
By Kevin Beaver, CISSP, and Caleb Sima.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Virtual recovery…
Ian Masters overviews the use of server virtualization technologies for business continuity purposes.
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Building service level management into business continuity planning
If IT departments are expected to maintain agreed service delivery levels post disaster, then they need to factor SLM into their business continuity planning before they embark on the risk assessment / BIA stage, says Gary Read.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Preventing critical data loss
Having an up-to-date inventory of computing assets is crucial to effective data protection; but many companies fail in this area. By Dr. Jim Kennedy.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Dealing with the headache of business critical systems management
New communications and networking technologies are creating challenges which many businesses are struggling to cope with, says Marc Marazzi.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Top ten tips for a successful RAID implementation
Using RAID technology? Alex Young provides some help.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Top ten security threats in 2007
Predictions by McAfee Avert Labs.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Why information security and business continuity management must dovetail
By Brian Davey, senior consultant, Teed Business Continuity.
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•Type: Article •Region: UK/Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Continuous data protection comes of age
Mark Ferelli explains how continuous data protection helps businesses meet their recovery time and recovery point objectives.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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WAN requirements for successful disaster recovery
How WAN acceleration can assist in developing more effective IT continuity solutions.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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The reinvention of backup and disaster recovery
Beth White explains why she believes that deduplication is the key enabling technology for future backup and DR techniques.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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New technologies tackle remote office backup
Ed Walsh gives his view of the latest developments in back up technologies.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Trends in data recovery management
The rise of tiered storage architectures has created an opportunity to change the way enterprises protect and manage backup data.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Intelligent data protection in today's enterprise
Intelligent data protection in the enterprise means designing backup, recovery and archiving procedures around the service level requirements of the application. But how is this achieved? George Symons explains.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Stop banging that drum…Tape is going to be around for some time
Disk-based systems for daily backup needs and tape remaining the long-term retention medium of choice is the perfect marriage, says Chris James.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Successful backups are not enough
Data protection requirements have moved on from the purely technical question of ‘Did the backup work?’ So, how do we bridge the gap between the technical and business definitions of success? Jim McDonald explains.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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The key importance of understanding Recovery Point Objectives
Garry Poole explains why RPOs are a vital tool for persuading senior management to invest in a business continuity programme.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Striking the balance between storage security and availability
Any good strategy for data storage protection includes a strategic balance between information availability and information security.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Data leakage: a real business continuity issue
Are reports of data loss and theft just the tip of an iceberg that at best compromises growth and at worst can result in the demise of businesses? Dr. Jim Kennedy gives his views.
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•Type: Article •Region: US/Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Securing software
Information security attacks are one of the prime causes of IT downtime, and many of these are related to software vulnerabilities. Kevin Beaver and Caleb Sima highlight six common weaknesses in the software development life cycle that lead to vulnerable code and explain what can be done to avoid this problem.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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VoIP: business continuity thoughts
Dr. Jim Kennedy highlights areas that should be considered when designing and operating VoIP telecoms systems.
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•Type: Article •Region: US/Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Optimising data protection in Linux environments
Ken Horner explains why real-time, byte-level replication improves protection service levels while requiring fewer resources.
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•Type: Article •Region: UK/Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Take the ‘compliance self-diagnosis test’…
AXS-One offers ten challenging questions to help assess your organisation’s compliance readiness.
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•Type: Article •Region: UK/W.Europe •Level: Basic
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Cyber extortion is now a very real threat – is your business at risk?
The threat of being blackmailed by organised criminals using DDoS attacks is very real and businesses cannot afford to be complacent.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Keeping the VoIP house in order
The emergence of Voice over IP as an affordable alternative to traditional telephony has ushered in a new wave of network security considerations. Jonathan Zar outlines the key issues.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Future trends in data lifecycle management
Is cost-effective data lifecycle management just a dream? Geoff Hough attempts to answer this question.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Contingency access to encrypted data
How do you ensure that encrypted data can be quickly accessed in situations where the original key is not available?
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•Type: Article •Region: UK/Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Will 2006 be the year of storage virtualization?
ONStor’s Jon Toor explains why he believes that 2006 may be the year that use of virtualization technologies really takes off.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Coping with a major security breach? What’s your contingency plan?
Legal pressures, not to mention your moral obligation to assist unwitting victims, means that you should never delay when disclosing IT security incidents.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Security risk assessment and management in Web application security
Caleb Sima highlights the primary areas to consider in a Web security risk management plan.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Emerging threats 2006: VoIP
Voice over Internet Protocol is both a threat and an opportunity as far as business continuity is concerned.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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MP3 players : the security risk and how to manage it
The goal is not to exhaust resources trying to ban devices, but to find a way to encompass their existence within the corporate data security policy.
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•Type: Article •Region: UK/Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Tribal thinking in today’s IT environments
Tribal thinking is human nature at its most basic - and may explain one of the more puzzling aspects of IT security. By David M Lynch.
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•Type: Article •Region: World •Level: Basic
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Leveraging virtual machines for business continuity
Jason Buffington, CBCP and Microsoft MVP, provides an overview of virtualization and its business continuity uses.
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The always-on network: strategies for achieving high availability of IT systems
Randy MacCleary details the four elements of a high availability physical support plan - power, heat removal, monitoring and service management.
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•Type: Article •Region: US/World •Level: Basic
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Competing in the age of the continuous enterprise…
Large financial institutions are well aware of the cost of downtime – but it’s time other sectors took the issue more seriously…
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•Type: Article •Region: UK/World •Level: Basic
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New technology trends: the Adaptive WAN
Michael Mullaley explains how an Adaptive WAN can contribute to IT continuity.
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Intelligent infrastructure management: a catalyst for change within the enterprise
Rick Marshall explains what IT continuity and general business benefits an IIM architecture can provide.
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•Type: Article •Region: World •Level: Basic
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Data recovery checklist
The way that storm-damaged media is handled initially can have a major impact on whether data can be recovered from it.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Can removable disk technology supersede tape, fixed disk and hybrid solutions?
…Asks Iomega’s Andre Armstrong. He may be biased, but does he have a point?
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Bare media exposed
Steve Tongish comments on the potential short and long term risks of using bare optical meda.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Data breaches: turn back the tide
An information security best practices primer to help minimise the risks posed to business and customer information.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Protecting against catastrophic data loss
Breece Hill has provided a list of five things small to midsize businesses need to know about data protection.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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The future of enterprise data back-up and recovery
A new approach is required to protect business critical data often stored outside the reach of conventional enterprise back-up mechanisms.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Designing today’s SANs
Storage networking has undergone rapid change with new technologies constantly being introduced. Tom Clark provides a SAN roadmap.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Building true business continuity solutions over IP
Dante Malagrino details the technologies that can be used.
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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The future of high availability
High availability solutions have evolved significantly over the past couple of years but what will tomorrow’s HA solutions look like?
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•Type: Article •Region: Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Addressing the risks of removable media
Magnus Ahlberg explores the data protection threats posed by technological developments in the field of removable media.
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•Type: Article •Region: World •Level: Basic
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How to handle change better than the rest
Businesses can create their own crises by not managing technology change effectively. Brian Hendry offers some advice.
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•Type: Article•Region: World •Level: Basic
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Case study: How high availability can support business continuity
How HA and BC can be complimentary solutions without great expense and complexity.
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The threat within - why businesses need to manage and monitor employee e-mail usage
What are the main risks of allowing staff uncontrolled access to e-mail services? Jamie Cowper explores.
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•Type: Article •Region: UK/World •Level: Basic
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How much security is enough?
The CERT Coordination Centre has published a new article which aims to help organisations determine what level of information protection is sufficient and appropriate.
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•Type: Link •Region: US/Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Reducing computer room risks
Tony Dowdeswell explains why European standard BS/EN1047 can help protect IT operations.
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Migrating a data centre…
This Global Switch paper looks at the issues involved in ensuring business continuity when migrating a data centre and provides a useful checklist.
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•Type: Article •Region: World •Level: Basic
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Comment: How to avert disaster in the midst of a crisis
Mike Osborne looks at the issue of recovery centre syndication levels.
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•Type: Article •Region: UK •Level: Basic
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Dealing with downtime
IT continuity considerations for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). By Ian Masters.
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•Type: Article •Region: UK/Worldwide •Level: Basic
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Disk-based backup and restore: reaching the next level
Alexandre Delcayre looks at the advantages of using a Virtual Tape Library solution for data protection and disaster recovery.
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•Type: Article •Region: UK/Worldwide •Level: Basic
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