Posted by Mark Brousseau
Forecasters at Colorado State University recently announced that the 2011 Atlantic hurricane season will be very active. Before the season starts, it's time for businesses to get ready, while remembering their most valuable asset: information.
"No matter the size of a company, without access to information, clients could be lost and the owner may be at risk for losing the business altogether," said Marshall Stevens, co-owner of Stevens & Stevens Business Records Management, Inc, a Florida-based records management center. "To ensure business continuity, owners should develop a disaster recovery plan to assess how they're storing and managing information. These plans can help keep a business up and running so all business functions could be handled, even without access to your facility or network."
Get prepared by considering the following:
... Location and security of your storage facility – Store information off-site in a location that's been designed to withstand high sustained winds, is located in a non-flood zone, has a secure vault and is also secured with alarms, security cameras and pass codes.
... Accessibility – Be sure you can access your information no matter the time of day or day of week.
... Document back-ups – Whether you make copies or have external hard drives, back-up files of key documents is crucial. Keep back-ups in multiple locations, so if a disaster affects your office, another copy of your information is still available.
... Alternative records storage options – Consider utilizing technology that allows files to be converted to electronic images, which are then hosted on a secure, password-protected website. So, if files are destroyed or you couldn't access your facility, information wouldn't be gone for good.
"Hurricane season can be an uneasy time, but by planning how you'll protect information now, if disaster does strike, you can focus on running your business rather than trying to pick up the pieces after the fact," said Stevens.
How does your company safeguard its information during a hurricane?
Showing posts with label data storage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label data storage. Show all posts
Friday, May 13, 2011
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Government e-discovery trends
Posted by Mark Brousseau
The chief information officer increasingly is joining the chief council in setting e-Discovery strategy within government organizations. That's according to a survey by USIS, an Altegrity company, conducted among government leaders from the federal e-Discovery community.
Among the other findings of the survey:
• Information management, data collection, and producing discoverable results in a timely manner are major concerns.
• More than one-third of respondents said the preservation and collection stage of electronic data discovery (EDD) needs the most improvement.
• Organizations that place a strong emphasis on the EDD process and strategy tend to have better e-Discovery processes.
• Among respondents whose organizations do not place an emphasis on the EDD process, not a single one reported being satisfied with their e-Discovery process.
“This survey reinforces how important it is to have good information management practices in place for the e-Discovery program and the burden it can place on a team when those practices simply aren’t there,” notes Michael Santelli, president of USIS’ Information Management Division (LABAT). “Being proactive about managing data can also save money. It is not uncommon to hear that the cost of one litigation would have paid for the technology and services to better manage the data.”
What do you think?
The chief information officer increasingly is joining the chief council in setting e-Discovery strategy within government organizations. That's according to a survey by USIS, an Altegrity company, conducted among government leaders from the federal e-Discovery community.
Among the other findings of the survey:
• Information management, data collection, and producing discoverable results in a timely manner are major concerns.
• More than one-third of respondents said the preservation and collection stage of electronic data discovery (EDD) needs the most improvement.
• Organizations that place a strong emphasis on the EDD process and strategy tend to have better e-Discovery processes.
• Among respondents whose organizations do not place an emphasis on the EDD process, not a single one reported being satisfied with their e-Discovery process.
“This survey reinforces how important it is to have good information management practices in place for the e-Discovery program and the burden it can place on a team when those practices simply aren’t there,” notes Michael Santelli, president of USIS’ Information Management Division (LABAT). “Being proactive about managing data can also save money. It is not uncommon to hear that the cost of one litigation would have paid for the technology and services to better manage the data.”
What do you think?
Monday, November 22, 2010
Data: Lost or Misplaced?
By Rich Walsh
In taking a look at the Kroll Ontrack “Global Data Loss Causes” survey, I found it interesting that 90 percent of responders have lost data, and 18 percent did not know how the data went missing. Mind you, these losses could be attributed to such occurrences as data that has been corrupted by a virus or just human error – files being misfiled or accidentally deleted. But, I immediately thought, “Perhaps it wasn’t lost; it just couldn’t be found.”
Having written and spoken about data storage for years, one theme has remained constant: the amount of data that corporations must manage is growing and shows no signs of stopping. Keeping track of this mass of data is a daunting challenge for many companies.
I often hear from IT executives that they are frustrated by the multitude of archiving systems at their organizations as more and more repositories are installed to meet data growth. Misplacing data becomes very plausible, and even typical, in this type of environment.
Losing data is never a good thing and when it happens, whether in a household or at a major corporation, it can create some headaches – to put it mildly. In the current environment, losing data is simply not an option as new regulations are sure to put more demands on data recovery. The consequences for missing data can be severe; you only need to read the mortgage-foreclosure headlines to get a sense of this.
Storage professionals may be feeling pressure from IT executives to fix the problem while managing costs. Data management should not be an obstacle to a corporation’s primary business objective. Now is the ideal time to address this issue because there is no apparent end in sight for the onslaught of data.
How is your company handling the barrage?
Rich Walsh is President, Document Archive & Repository Services at Viewpointe. He has more than 25 years of operational information technology experience.
In taking a look at the Kroll Ontrack “Global Data Loss Causes” survey, I found it interesting that 90 percent of responders have lost data, and 18 percent did not know how the data went missing. Mind you, these losses could be attributed to such occurrences as data that has been corrupted by a virus or just human error – files being misfiled or accidentally deleted. But, I immediately thought, “Perhaps it wasn’t lost; it just couldn’t be found.”
Having written and spoken about data storage for years, one theme has remained constant: the amount of data that corporations must manage is growing and shows no signs of stopping. Keeping track of this mass of data is a daunting challenge for many companies.
I often hear from IT executives that they are frustrated by the multitude of archiving systems at their organizations as more and more repositories are installed to meet data growth. Misplacing data becomes very plausible, and even typical, in this type of environment.
Losing data is never a good thing and when it happens, whether in a household or at a major corporation, it can create some headaches – to put it mildly. In the current environment, losing data is simply not an option as new regulations are sure to put more demands on data recovery. The consequences for missing data can be severe; you only need to read the mortgage-foreclosure headlines to get a sense of this.
Storage professionals may be feeling pressure from IT executives to fix the problem while managing costs. Data management should not be an obstacle to a corporation’s primary business objective. Now is the ideal time to address this issue because there is no apparent end in sight for the onslaught of data.
How is your company handling the barrage?
Rich Walsh is President, Document Archive & Repository Services at Viewpointe. He has more than 25 years of operational information technology experience.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
What’s keeping CEOs up at night?
By Rich Walsh
Storage professionals who want to bring new ideas to their organizations on how better to manage corporate data might want to take note of Gartner, Inc.’s “seven major CEO concerns that CIOs should address.”
Gartner’s guide for CIOs provides some excellent insight into what management (CEOs in particular) expects from any new project that involves additional spending or technology upgrades. For example, what Gartner outlines in “investing in new cost efficiencies” is consistent with offsite e-storage management plans that I have been discussing with companies of late.
Not surprisingly, anything that saves money will be viewed favorably. As Gartner’s analysts put it, “CIOs proposing larger structural cost-saving ideas, such as major end-to-end process changes or automations, will likely receive CEO approval.”
Additionally, Gartner points out that CEOs are increasingly expecting that solutions be long-term and sustainable. Ideally, anything proposed should not simply be a quick fix.
Offsite data storage projects can meet those requirements and, done right, can produce long-term cost savings and sustainable solutions. Your management team might be interested to know that many businesses have been gradually moving to offsite data management, successfully trimming costs while being able to continue to access, control and monitor their records.
What steps are you taking to improve operations, your role in IT and data management overall?
Rich Walsh is president, Document Archive & Repository Services at Viewpointe. Rich has more than 25 years of operational information technology experience.
Storage professionals who want to bring new ideas to their organizations on how better to manage corporate data might want to take note of Gartner, Inc.’s “seven major CEO concerns that CIOs should address.”
Gartner’s guide for CIOs provides some excellent insight into what management (CEOs in particular) expects from any new project that involves additional spending or technology upgrades. For example, what Gartner outlines in “investing in new cost efficiencies” is consistent with offsite e-storage management plans that I have been discussing with companies of late.
Not surprisingly, anything that saves money will be viewed favorably. As Gartner’s analysts put it, “CIOs proposing larger structural cost-saving ideas, such as major end-to-end process changes or automations, will likely receive CEO approval.”
Additionally, Gartner points out that CEOs are increasingly expecting that solutions be long-term and sustainable. Ideally, anything proposed should not simply be a quick fix.
Offsite data storage projects can meet those requirements and, done right, can produce long-term cost savings and sustainable solutions. Your management team might be interested to know that many businesses have been gradually moving to offsite data management, successfully trimming costs while being able to continue to access, control and monitor their records.
What steps are you taking to improve operations, your role in IT and data management overall?
Rich Walsh is president, Document Archive & Repository Services at Viewpointe. Rich has more than 25 years of operational information technology experience.
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