REAL-TIME DATA AVAILABILITY SOLUTIONS:
Does Your Business Have A Need For Speed?

By Pat McAnally, Bill DiMartini, George Hakun, John Lindeman and Robert Parker.

Information. There’s no debate that it’s been at the core of business for decades. However, with the rise in global competition and the emergence of the Internet sales channel, information is accessed by employees, customers and partners far beyond traditional boundaries and their expectations for instantaneous response continues to skyrocket.

Now, information availability is used as a competitive advantage, whether it’s the website being available, financial information accessible 24x7, or partner networks running non-stop. And the cost of not having access to that information is now measured in the millions. As a result, this evolution of real-time technology and business requirements has created the need for robust, real-time information recovery solutions.

Many companies have rebuilt their business models in this age of connectivity, drastically changing long-standing business processes overnight. Unfortunately, in this process of change, companies are choosing strategies that are based on a hyper-speed time to market with a de facto acceptance of higher information risk. They have placed their business at great risk by not assessing how they will protect, access, and ensure the availability of their information. Information accessibility is more than a process— it’s a strategic business decision. This article can help you determine where you are in the information protection continuum and what your strategy should be.

THE NEED FOR REAL-TIME DATA ACCESSIBILITY
In the not-so-distant past, the IT world relied primarily upon tape back up, with the knowledge that at least the information is somewhere if needed. Often, the recovery process was only tested in pieces and the entire process was never timed. And even with more advanced data storage technologies, companies never consider key data availability issues, like the speed of information access, the length of time for a complete recovery, or even if the recovery would be successful. In fact, a recent Hewlett-Packard survey found that 60% of companies with recovery plans have never tested them and aren’t sure they would work.

However, many companies have recognized the need for comprehensive planning and have devised and tested business continuity and disaster recovery plans. Their major shortfall is the failure to revise and update their data availability strategies. Traditional data storage and business resumption plans that deliver a 24 to 72-hour restoration will not meet all the demands of today’s information-centric business models. Companies need to rethink their information strategies to determine how long they can survive without access to mission-critical information. Let’s take a look at some of the most prevalent information access challenges that companies are facing:

• e-Commerce
We’ve all heard the stories of the e-commerce sites that have crashed under the weight of a weak technology infrastructure. In the rush to get to market, it has been acceptable to overlook key questions about business continuity and information access/protection. A recent IBM study of 226 corporate business managers found that only 8% of firms doing business on the Internet have an information protection plan in place. Beyond consideration of hardware requirements, any company conducting business on the Internet needs to consider their information availability and usability requirements. Plus, many companies have focused on web-enabling legacy applications, leaving more information accessible and susceptible to unplanned outages.

• Enterprise Resource Planning
Having all of the business-critical information seamlessly integrated with access and usage through the organization is truly the ideal concept. However, through the creation of this "nerve center," the ability to fall back on manual processes has been eliminated. When the ERP database goes down, business stops. The question that companies need to ask is how long they can afford to be without this information? And more importantly, how much data, if any, can they afford to lose?

• Trading communities/Electronic Data Exchange (EDI)
Companies are relying more and more upon use of electronic networks and EDI to facilitate business- to-business processes. From around-the-clock trading operations through the continuous capture of electronic charges, data and system availability are a necessity for the viability of the company.

• Regulatory requirements
To minimize the potential negative impact of downtime on the economy, the government has mandated to many businesses the amount of time in which by law they need to be back "on-line." For example, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) places severe timeframe limitations on firms and businesses in the trading market. Other restrictions and penalties apply to hospitals and utility companies. Plus, the financial industry, under increasing cost pressure, is looking at straight-through processing that requires tight integration of systems and data. But, with the benefit of straight-through processing, risk goes up exponentially. As a result, these companies need data availability solutions that are minutes, not hours, away.

CROSSING THE THRESHOLD
How do you know when you’ve become a candidate for a high availability solution?

Start by reading the statements below. If your business fits one or more, then you need to seriously consider a high data availability solution now. If your business does not fit, use this information to reassess your status in the next 60 days. Today’s business moves at lightning speed; you may cross the threshold before you realize it. Ask yourself how you would have answered a mere 60 days ago.

I have applications and systems that cannot experience any downtime. Typical distributed network sites operate at a downtime cost of $20K to $80 K per hour, with companies like stock firms impacted at rates of $6 million per hour. Even at $80K per hour, an average downtime of 88.6 hours calculates to $7.1 million. (Strategic Research Corporation.) Do you know how much your downtime is costing?

I am required by law to provide the highest, most secure levels of data availability. Beyond the business impact of data loss and system downtime, the government has imposed strict regulations upon key industries, particularly the financial/banking and healthcare industries. The latest high-availability solutions offer companies an affordable way to comply with regulations and minimize their business risk.

I need immediate data accessibility with near-zero data loss. Put simply, how much data can you afford to lose? Real-time data availability solutions protect the data up to the point of failure, resulting in near-zero data loss. And these solutions ensure that the information can be successfully accessed and reconstructed, or even used immediately in a fail-over scenario.

I need multiple layers of recovery built into my data protection solution. Building your own hardened facility is expensive, yet a high availability on-site option makes access to information easy. The problem is that you’ve only assured one level of protection. A true disaster-tolerant information strategy requires multiple layers of recovery, including off-site data replication and protection.

I need a data availability solution that is fully testable without major investment of time and resources. No high availability strategy can claim the status of "real-time recovery" if it is not fully testable without impacting current operations. Otherwise, the benefits of instant access will be eliminated by extensive staff management time.

My IT staff is spending too much time patching together data availability solutions when we need to be focused on driving innovation and revenue for the company. Despite their best intentions, your IT staff simply cannot be the experts on everything. The options for a high availability solution are constantly changing and expanding. Make sure that your solution will remain intact even when your most talented staff member gets pulled to another project, or even worse, leaves the company.

I do not have the resources to ensure the availability of the equipment. The best-planned strategy will fail if the equipment itself is not at peak operating condition and if data transmissions are not monitored for performance. By using an outside partner, companies can ensure the quality of the equipment and the transmission process.

About the Authors
This article is excerpted with permission from a White Paper prepared by SunGard Planning Solutions. The paper, located on the website www.SunGard.drexperts.com, was edited by Pat McAnally and contributors included Bill DiMartini, George Hakun, John Lindeman, and Robert Parker.