Promote Business Continuity as a Managed Service

Business continuity is the ability of an organization to continue functioning after an unplanned interruption. Data disaster recovery is an important part of business continuity capabilities.

Why does your end client need a business continuity solution? And what are the key components of a business continuity plan? Here are some answers.

Business continuity once had a lower priority than other IT issues, but today’s IT managers and business owners recognize that any organization is vulnerable to unplanned disruptions. Even a small interruption can bring an organization’s operations to a halt. Email down, for instance. Or patient record system not accessible for another. It doesn’t need to be a hurricane, a flood or a fire that brings a business to its knees. A server down-depending on the criticality of that server will have the same effect. In addition, a good business continuity plan covers all IT resources, including telecommunications, networks, servers and storage.

Does your organization have a solution to address business continuity? If you’re truly interested in your clients’ success, you should. A Business continuity plan includes the following components:

• Process to handle business from a separate site in the event the primary location is not available
• On site and off site storage of critical data
• Quick access to critical data in the event the primary location is not available
• Internet access and information availability from multiple locations so remote users can work
• Uninterrupted phone access
• Uninterrupted access to e-mail

What are the difficulties?

The goal of a business continuity solution is to identify the most cost-effective disaster recovery plan while also addressing the need to continue business in the event of a disaster, which is, indeed, a very complex task. Again, “a disaster” could simply be a critical server being down. For IT, the plan requires research, implementation, validation and maintenance:

• Create a crisis management command structure
• Open a secondary work site (where necessary)
• Choose, install, and maintain the telecommunication architecture between the primary and secondary work sites (or this could simply be call-forwarding to cell phones)
• Choose, install, and maintain the data replication or movement methodology between the two work sites (off-site storage)
• Choose, install and maintain the hardware at the secondary work site
• Choose, install and maintain the application and software at the secondary work site

Many organizations must also ensure the safety and confidentiality of their records, even in case of disaster, to comply with more than 8,000 state and federal regulations that affect records management.

How can we help?

As you know a Business Continuity Plan has more than data backup and restore as a component, but this has been the most difficult component to provide cost effectively in the SMB marketplace. With Zenith’s solution, that component is easily taken care of. As the core component of your plan, the BDR solution allows you to easily put together the remaining processes to answer any small business’ needs.
Zenith’s BDR solution protects your end client data like an enterprise-based solution at an SMB (Small to Medium size) price. And in some cases it even works better. But we don’t just sell you the product; we also provide world-class service and support when and how you need it.
A storage solution designed for SMB’s organizations

• A completely white-labeled solution so partners brand it as their own
• Competitive pricing allows partners to make 200-300% markups easily
• A complete bundle that is easy explain to potential clients
• Simple, low-cost disk backup, including our widely acclaimed INSTANT VIRTUALIZATION
• 256-bit AES encryption locally and at the off-site storage facility
• Sync to USB or SATA drive feature included
• 3 year warranty included
• Optional off-site storage component available at low cost for true business continuity
• Maintenance support and service included
• Software patches, fixes, and upgrades included
• Telephone and email technical support included
• Web-based online knowledge center included

Note: Maurice Saluan is VP-Channel Management for Zenith Infotech as well as seasoned sales veteran in the managed service arena. Guest blog entries such as this one are contributed on a monthly basis as part of MSPmentor.net’s Platinum sponsorship.