Guest Column: Getting The Business Involved In Business Continuity Planning

By Norm Alesi, Vieo Consulting Group

Disasters happen. Whether it's a weather phenomenon or something much more sinister, disasters can sneak into a company, steal its data and sap its livelihood. Contingency planning for these disasters is therefore a critical activity that could thwart danger.

Responsibility for these various programs has broadened as trends hold executive leadership more personally responsible for the wellness of the business that they oversee. While information technology (IT) is a crucial part of any business in today's environment, contingency planning is a much more comprehensive business initiative. Still, information technology leadership is often asked to lead the charge in disaster recovery (DR) and business continuity (BC) planning programs. The lines are being blurred.

Contingency planning is a broad arena that addresses a myriad of risks facing the organization. IT leadership's role is most appropriately focused on planning for those business risks that are directly related to the provision of data center services. This process involves DR strategy development, DR restoration planning, and BC planning for critical business functions that must be maintained during an outage of IT services.