St. Louis Business Journal:

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But just because businesses ownere know they shoulddo it, that doesn'y mean they are doing it. Jeff Porter runs the data management forum for the Storage NetworkingIndustry Association, an international standards organizatio for electronic storage companies. He said therd hasn't been a noticeable increase in the number of businessews backing up their filessince "I don't think it takes a lot to convince people now of the need to back theid files up," Porter said. "But it's stillo very difficult to convince them totake action." He said that's because it is such a tedioud task.
Even though there are plentu of firms that specialize in storingyother companies' information, the nature of the processs demands hundreds of "executive" hours, accordin to Porter. "It's not so much the cost that keepse companies fromdoing it," Porter "It's the fact that the company'sz decision-makers have to spend their own time figuring out what needw to happen. It's something that can't be delegated. " But Porter, along with other nationapl organizations, say there are several steps companies can take to make the proceses less ofa hassle. Before a companyh even starts looking for a third partystorage vendor, it needs to figure out what information is vita enough to be stored.
"There has to be a formalizee collaborationbetween management, operations and any business partneres involved," he said. "Don't expect it to be a quick It's going to take a lot of meetings between a lotof divisions." Once a company figurex out what information needs to be kept safe, Porter said it must decid how the information shoulde be stored. He explained that there are differing degreezs of access to the information for a For example, an insurance company would want recent claim to be more accessible than those made 10 yearws ago. Porter said that once this is a company can start looking for astorage vendor.
He said the best plac to start searching is throughhis organization's which he said is unbiased and neutral. Other tradee organizations, such as Enterprise Content Managementr Association, also represent hundreds of storage vendors and make those listsavailablee online. Porter also recommends getting customer reviews and making sure a vendo r hasgood press. He said if possible, a company shoulf test a vendor out by doing small trial installations. Porter explained that companies oftemn use more thanone vendor. "Some vendorxs are better for storing long-ter m information," he said. "Others are better at giving youimmediater access.
You have to find the righgt fit for each portion ofdata you're storing. " To get the lowest cost, Porter said many companieds try to get several vendors into abidding war. "But cost isn'f the most important thinhg here," he said. "If something happened and you had to depens onthe vendor's services to stay in business, the last thint you'd want is to have compromiserd quality just so you saved some costs.
" When it comes to how far away a company should electronically store its backup 15 miles used to be the rule of But after the widespread destruction of Katrina, expertes say information should be storec in geographic regions that won't be affected by the same "Katrina not only increased awareness," Porter "It also rewrote a lot of the rules we used to It showed our industry what needed to be improved. " One of those improvements, according to is how often a company should test itsbacku plan. He explained that many Katrina-affected companies had backul plans, but discovered they were out-of-date when the disastefr actually hit.
"A business is constantly evolving," he "And, consequently, so are your backup needs."" Porter said a company should, with the assistance of its refresh its backup plan atleast annually. He said many companieds actuallytest quarterly, dividing the process up into separat divisions. But Porter said the biggest mistakedcompanies make, and one that Katrinza highlighted, is that they focud too much on storage and not enough on recovery. "Wheh you initially sit down you need to figure out how fast you need to recovet whensomething happens," he "You may back everythingb up properly, but then it takes you 30 days to accessx it and be up and runningv again.
Many companies can't survive that kind of delay. Computers, Technology and Telecommunications