Preparing for the worst

Abdulaziz Al-Sallou of Duroob Technology advises Middle East companies on why they should deploy business continuity and disaster recovery solutions and how to choose the best technology.

Are enough companies in the Middle East sufficiently aware of the need to have robust disaster recovery and business continuity procedures in place?
Abdulaziz Al-Sallou. In the past, a business continuity infrastructure has been looked at as an insurance policy that should be there in case of a disaster. Nowadays, more and more companies are trying to make their business continuity infrastructure dynamic - using it every day of the week to move information technology systems anytime, anywhere and for whatever purpose. Organisations in the Middle East find data volumes continuing to grow, service level and compliance requirements increasing and costs rising. Awareness is rising as disaster recovery and business continuity solutions can dramatically improve operations, making data easier to share and manage with less disruption. Over the last several years, organisations have learned that this comprehensive solution not only simplifies complex environments, but also improves utilisation and boosts productivity - all resulting in a lower total cost of ownership. Companies in the Middle East are now mature enough to understand that users require solutions that are easy to use and feature advanced capabilities that enable them to remain competitive in the marketplace while meeting IT infrastructure demands and reliability.

How can CIOs justify investment in disaster recovery solutions to their management boards when no immediate return on investment is obvious?
AAS. As always, system reliability is critical for any organisation and the importance of continuous information access has never been greater. IT architectures that fail to deliver high availability will impede business operations. Disaster recovery and business continuity solution capabilities make it easier to meet required service levels while improving efficiency and providing the ability to place information in storage tiers that can significantly reduce costs. Easy-to-use tools that work across the information infrastructure help to utilise best practices for backup and recovery management and operations. Also another key tool when it comes to in meeting service levels is intelligence in the environment, including the ability to prioritise workloads at different times during the day to meet application requirements. In the long term organisations should have ability to move data among various drive types and RAID levels, streamlining their environment while improving efficiency and flexibility. Disasters can be costly in terms of downtime and manpower, so if a company has a business continuity solution that can alleviate the unexpected costs then the investment will pay for itself.

What particular events should companies be preparing to guard themselves against using disaster recovery solutions?
AAS. There has never been a good time to put off implementing a business continuity or disaster recovery plan. However, in these difficult times it could be even more important to implement a solution and ensure that your business can continue in the face of a disaster. Dynamic infrastructure ties in all of the benefits of business continuity, without restoration times. Companies should ensure they protect themselves in the event of following events in particular: exponential data growth; compliance requirements and service level agreements; system or power outages; natural disasters; internal sabotage or cyber attacks; government conflicts.

What factors should companies consider when selecting a disaster recovery or business continuity solution?
AAS. The overall goal is to minimise business disruptions and maintain a high level of confidence in the ability of your company to resume working in a timely manner. Companies should ensure they consider certain key aspects of a disaster recovery or business continuity solution while carrying out their evaluation of it.

Business agility, superior application uptime, simplicity of management, and breakthrough value for your enterprise is a key factor as is the achievement of performance objectives for all application tiers at the lowest TCO. The solution must provide the highest levels of system availability and data protection as well as enhancing backup and recovery processes while reducing associated costs. Proactive service and support to quickly resolve potential issues and minimise both planned and unplanned outages must be a feature. And companies should have the ability to avoid penalties due to loss of information using the solution. Solutions should feature advanced business continuity via array based replication technologies to protect and move critical information and should be able to use the solution to help reduce the cost of power, cooling and rack space.

Abdulaziz Al-Sallou owns and oversees Duroob Technology's business units and has 20 years of experience facilitating international business and developing strategies to promote new technology and solutions into Middle East markets. Prior to establishing Duroob Technology, he was the Managing Director for leading entire operations of CA Middle East, headquartered in Saudi Arabia and offices through out Gulf regions. He has completed his Masters from University of Florida and successfully managed partnership responsibilities of his family business in the US.