Security

Mention disaster recovery to most businesses and they automatically start to think about power failures, earthquakes or some kind of nationwide catastrophe. It's because of that attitude, says Plan-B Ltd. founder and director Martin Wellesley, that disaster recovery plans tend to be vague and ultimately not worth the paper they're printed on.

Clearview's primary goals were security and high availability. Little did the company realize that it was purchasing a suite of disaster recovery (DR) services as well. Today Toronto-based Clearview fully appreciates the value of daily incremental backups, with weekly full backups stored off-site.

SunGard Availability Services' track record in the area of business continuity looks pretty impressive. The company's Web site says SunGard does 350,000 hours of business continuity consulting each year, has written 10,000 disaster recovery (DR) plans, and can be credited with more than 1,500 successful recoveries! Dave Palermo, SunGard's vice-president, marketing, shares some of these strategies in this exclusive interview with Warren Lee.

Beth Everett's brushes with history have left her with better insights into worst-case scenarios. Now, as a consultant at Network Inference Inc. in Carlsbad, Calif., she wonders how a potential hazardous materials situation -- a chemical spill or attack -- might affect IT. Worries like these would have been unimaginable even five years ago. But world events have changed the way many CIOs think about their disaster recovery plans.