Business Continuity Encompasses the Cloud

Grazed from Baseline Magazine.  Author: Bob Violino.

Business continuity has become a high priority for companies, and one of the most significant recent trends in BC planning and practices is the emergence of cloud computing as a key component.  "The cloud has fundamentally changed business continuity," says Rich Cocchiara, distinguished engineer and CTO for Business Continuity & Resilience Services at IBM. "Capabilities previously only available to larger companies, such as remote failover, are now within reach of many small and medium size businesses."

The on-demand nature and geographic diversity afforded by the cloud lets organizations put backup operations far away from their primary operations at an affordable price. "This affordability—combined with increased testing capabilities and future improvements in network bandwidth and server and storage  capacity—will force companies to re-evaluate the need for self-recovery," Cocchiara adds…

Relying on the Cloud

Shaklee, a Pleasanton, Calif., provider of nutrition and home care products, relies on the cloud for much of its BC effort. The company has two main thrusts to its BC plan—technical and operational—according to Chris Jones, vice president of IT and CTO.  "In addition to systems being available quickly in the event of a disaster, they must be usable by knowledgeable workers," Jones says. This entails the managed recovery of IT services, network and communications availability and physical facilities for workers…

Read more from the source @  http://www.baselinemag.com/business-continuity/business-continuity-encompasses-the-cloud/