In the Better Together blog series, we take a look at how business continuity can support other functional areas by creating an information foundation from the data that business continuity collects from multiple sources across the enterprise. Here, we explore how business continuity and IT are better together.
Consider for a moment the typical tasks that IT is tasked with on a daily basis, both for on-premise environments owned by the business and with regard to external IT providers or cloud services:
- Providing a redundant, hardened processing environment
- Protecting systems and data from unauthorized access
- Ensuring that data and applications are available to meet business process requirements in production
- Managing current capacity
- Planning for future capacity
- Providing for the recovery of systems and applications that support critical business processes in response to a major incident
With these tasks in mind, what data does business continuity have in the information foundation that could support IT with these priorities?
One place where the information foundation can be of assistance is when there is an IT storage upgrade. Take the case where as older storage frame needs to be replaced. Using the shared information foundation, the IT storage team may find out that the storage frame is connected to a Linux server and that it supports the revenue capture business process. Therefore, the IT storage team will need to work with the Linux team and investigate how an upgrade could potentially impact the revenue capture process. By collaborating with these other business units, IT can make plans to upgrade the storage in a way that will not generate a negative impact on enterprise operations.
This example shows how, through the information foundation, data concerning process criticality, impacted audiences, teams and contact information, applications used, affected locations, and more are all available to IT to increase production process efficiency and reduce potential undesired ramifications, thereby increasing organizational resiliency.
For more real-world examples of the information foundation in action, read our whitepaper Creating the Foundation for Increased Business Resiliency and Efficiency.
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