Security

Demand for continuous data protection is growing as more businesses realize they not only need to back up the data on their networks as changes are made but also be able to recover that data quickly.

Compared to hot areas like security or wireless, data backup and restore may have seemed like IT's forgotten child - until now. A perfect storm of disappearing back-up windows (thanks to enormous data growth and nonstop business operations), large-scale catastrophes, increased litigation requiring electronic data discovery and federal regulations governing data retention, has catapulted backup and recovery to IT's head table.

In the aftermath of the Asian tsunami late last year and a rash of earthquakes off California's coast in June, businesses and governments are racing to roll out more-sophisticated electronic messaging systems to alert and guide people who face possible disaster.

Babco, senior director of IT at Covington-based SCP, a US$1.3 billion wholesale distributor of swimming pool supplies, had relocated his operations on two earlier occasions when hurricanes threatened neighbouring New Orleans. Both of those storms turned out to be near misses, but Babco said this week that the practice runs helped him fine-tune his plan for when the real thing finally hit.