By David Smith and Scott LamanIn an instant -- a fire, flood or hurricane can erase years of business operations. Most companies have thought about how they would manage in the event of a disaster; and some have even taken steps to prepare. But one disaster recovery priority companies often overlook is how fast they can restore critical digital content.
Digital and hard copy intellectual property like email, web pages, account files and HR documentation are the lifeblood of today’s enterprise. It is expensive and unrealistic to believe that an organization needs all of its documents and data restored minutes after a disaster. But businesses should take inventory of the information that is critical to run the business, prioritize what data needs to be restored as soon as possible, and what can wait for backups to be pulled.
Since most businesses don’t have the knowledge internally to plan for or prepare for a disaster, many turn to an experienced partner that can deploy innovative solutions based on an understanding of their specific risks and requirements. These disaster recovery partnerships help companies:• Reduce the costs associated with managing multiple vendor contracts and improve the capture, preservation and sharing of critical information.• Enhance enterprise accountability and transparency through improved access to, and preservation of content.And being proactive about disaster recovery has benefits beyond basic business restoration during a disaster. By making document and business processes more effective and efficient for a disaster recovery plan, organizations like Tulane University reduce costs, improve productivity and increase security and compliance.
Back to Business in the Aftermath
Tulane University is one of a variety of customers working to digitize and archive their digital content and protect against a serious interruption. In 2005, about two thirds of Tulane University’s main campus flooded when Hurricane Katrina hit. Aside from disruption to academic coursework and administration, the University experienced significant infrastructure damage. As one of the largest private employers in Louisiana, Tulane faced the challenge of getting its staff and facilities fully operational and resuming its momentum as an academic leader. The University’s Document Services Center was forced to entirely rebuild its operation, while being tasked with doing more with less to spur the recovery effort and future growth. Hurricane Katrina clearly outlined the business impact for Tulane. In 2008 the University decided to extend efforts to build a continuity program and optimize its document management and print technology and services to be prepared for the next disaster. The solution goals were simple – speed processes to improve service, control costs, identify continual improvements. The recommended solution was Xerox DocuShare. The content management platform was rolled out to three departments in a phased approach, resulting in wide acceptance of the changes, significant productivity gains and cost savings more than $80,000 to date.
Identifying Mission Critical Data
Similar to Tulane’s disaster recovery approach, companies need to look beyond IT systems and consider business processes and support functions as a part of the plan. An assessment of intellectual property can help determine what is essential to keep the company running. This formal review of content provides:
Risk analysis: evaluates how different types of events or disasters will affect business operations.
Business impact analysis (BIA): identifies the functions and processes that are essential for day-to-day operation by analyzing the impact of losing those critical functions and processes – to finances, productivity, etc. – while determining how quickly they must be restored to limit the business impact. During this analysis, a company assigns a Recovery Time Objective (RTO), the amount of time to recover a system from the moment of disaster to functional state and a Recovery Point Objective (RPO), the point in time when the information will be restored.
Business availability plan: outlines decisions and actions that should be performed to prevent or respond to a situation that disrupts normal business processes. ACS, a Xerox Company, assigns a level of recovery importance to documents, ranging from immediate recovery to waiting for a few days.
o Traditional Recovery is typical a tape backup solution that is shipped to an offsite recovery facility.
o Advanced Recovery is faster than Traditional Recovery and can include local disk mirroring that allows multiple backups to be executed daily and database shadowing that applies database logs to a remote copy of a standby database.
o High Availability is an immediate response to the disaster and it is unlikely anyone will notice the data was affected.
Continuity program: plans to develop and sustain business availability such as establishing a formal program office, complete with standards and governance policies and enterprise-wide business continuity plans.
Putting it into Practice
Companies like The Members Group, aren’t waiting until they are brought to a halt by a catastrophic event. The Members Group created a flexible, cost effective disaster recovery solution. The Des Moines-based financial services organization needed to maintain a maximum level of responsiveness should the business experience an unexpected interruption of normal operations. Working with ACS, The Members Group completely integrated disaster recovery across all of its critical business systems, along with integrated WAN network failover by relying on tape backup for servers and real time replication of its Windows environments. The solution was tested and operational in less than four hours, which ultimately met the RTO and RPOs outlined in the analysis phase. BIOsDavid Smith is vice president, general manager for Xerox DocuShare enterprise content management (ECM) software. He holds a master's degree in business administration from University of California at Berkeley, and a bachelor's degree from Kansas State. Scott M. Laman, director of Continuous Availability for ACS, A Xerox Company, has been involved with disaster recovery / business continuity program management for more than 20 years. Laman is a Certified Business Continuity Professional (CBCP) and a member of the North Texas Chapter of Association Contingency Planners.
February 1, 2010
The technology pro's greatest enemies-How to spot -- and take down -- the six most nefarious adversaries of IT
By Dan Tynan
Created 2010-02-01 03:00AM
Everybody keeps a list of the people who make their jobs and lives more difficult, even if they never write it down. It's a safe bet that IT pros' lists are longer than most.
You might think IT's greatest enemies are cyber criminals and malware authors. But far worse are those who make the lives of these evildoers that much easier. In fact, the greatest enemies of IT are members of the community IT serves: from clueless suits to annoying power users, from miserly managers to those friends and family members who are always hitting you up for free tech support. Any one of them can keep you from doing your best -- or getting anything done at all.
[ Find out which of our eight classic IT personality profiles [1] best suit your temperament. Learn about IT's dirtiest jobs [2], or have a laugh thanks to your network's weakest link in "Stupid user tricks 4: IT horror never ends [3]" ]
Making an "enemies" list is not just a cathartic exercise but also a useful one, says Mark Kadrich, CEO of The Security Consortium.
"Though they often curse the user community, most IT pros don't spend the time to identify good users from the bad ones," he says. "You ask most of them how many users have administrative access to their systems, and the answer is usually either 'I don't know' or 'all of them.' I think they need to take more time to classify their user communities."
Here are the classic enemies of IT, how to recognize them, and what you can do to keep them at bay.
Which tech enemies did we miss? Post your suggestions below [4].
IT enemy No. 1: The Ostrich [5]
IT enemy No. 1: The OstrichThe biggest enemy of many IT pros: bosses who bury their heads in the sand when it comes to technology [6], yet are still empowered to make critical IT decisions.
Businesspeople become the enemy when they refuse to acknowledge they have a role to play in how IT operates, says Daniel Teachey, senior director of marketing for data-quality specialists DataFlux. "Even if it's something as simple as defining what the term 'customer' means to their business," he says. "Data informs every action the business takes, and unless the business side takes some role in the management of data, IT will be left holding the bag and getting all the blame."
[7]
Even worse, upper management types that don't understand concepts like network security, yet override critical decisions of their network admins, says Randy Abrams, director of technical education for security vendor ESET [8].
"If you are in charge of network security but have no power to make decisions, then your job is to take the blame when things go wrong," he adds.
The classic example: email attachments.
"Several years ago IT managers had an incredibly hard time getting management to allow them to block executable attachments in email," says Abrams. "There was rarely a case when an executable file actually needed to be emailed, and the security advantages of blocking far outweighed the potential business costs of having these files blocked. Eventually the blocking of executables was built into Outlook, but it was a mindless battle of the clued vs. the powerful clueless for a long time."
Recognizing the enemy: That glazed-over look when confronted with technical questions, or the moment they open their mouths, says Abrams.
"They tend to say no first without ever understanding the problem or seeing the trade-offs -- even when the trade-offs are things that can ruin the business," he says.
Your best defense: Seek air support from high command.
"You need a data governance plan that spans the entire organization, which means getting a CXO type to step in and say, 'This is the way it's going to be,'" says DataFlux's Teachey. "They're the only ones with the will, the persuasiveness, and most importantly the budget to get it done."
But what if there's no one to give support from above?
"Then you're between a rock and a hard spot," notes ESET's Abrams. "The best you can do is hope to educate them. Figure out the best way to state your case so that it makes sense. Come up with a good analogy that's relevant to them. Knowledge can be power, but only if it's shared."
IT enemy No. 2: The Penny Pincher[9]
IT enemy No. 2: The Penny PincherWhether it's an enterprise-level CFO or a small-business owner, a penny-wise/pound-foolish manager can stand in the way of necessary IT investments -- making your job much harder.
Penny-pinching CFOs are among the biggest enemies of IT, says Nancee Melby, director of product marketing at Shavlik Technologies [10]. "Any CFO who thinks the free patching solutions from Microsoft are good enough needs to find a new job -- or get out of IT's business. Leaving your keys in the car and only locking the driver's door will keep out only the stupid criminals."
Granted, IT can be a bottomless pit, notes Peter Marsack, director of business development for Vision Computer Solutions, an IT services firm for SMBs. But that can often lead to an irrational fear of all spending.
"The beauty of technology is you can dump a virtually limitless amount of capital at it and still have problems in your technical infrastructure," he says. "Because of this, getting purchasing requests approved can be a tedious process even if the cause is just."
Marsack points to medical companies that refuse to become HIPAA-compliant -- despite the security benefits and the penalties noncompliance might incur -- simply because upgrading all their equipment cost too much.
"I have clients who refuse to replace their 7-year-old computers because 'they still work' even though their staff burns through 10 hours a week just waiting on slow machines," he adds. "Most people think they can just purchase computers, put a network in place, set it, and forget it. We have to explain to them these machines need to be maintained and supported."
Recognizing the enemy: Though you might garner clues from threadbare office furniture or those Windows 98 machines running in the reception area, the only way to know for sure is to ask pointed questions about how the organization allocates resources for technology, says Marsack.
"If they answer, 'We never do that,' or, 'We get things as we need them,' that's a red flag. If they say they devote X amount of dollars or allocate money on a regular schedule, they're more likely to invest the money required."
Your best defense: Gather intelligence. Find an incident where the organization's lack of IT investment hurt its bottom line -- say, a server that crashed or a backup that failed, leaving customers in the lurch -- and exploit it.
"These are the kinds of things that happen when you're not allocating appropriate resources to technology," Marsack says.
Still, he adds, defeating this enemy isn't easy.
"I've not met many people who enjoy writing a check for any amount budgeted for technology, even though their entire company runs on it," he says. "The person with the checkbook is the hardest person to please in the business."
IT enemy No. 3: The Power User[11]
IT enemy No. 3: The Power UserEvery IT pro has stories about plebes who suck the lifeblood from the help desk with questions about their PC's "any" key. But the real threat is posed by users who know just enough to be dangerous [12].
"For me the biggest enemy is not the clueless user, but the clued-in user who doesn't have the whole picture," says Kevin Thompson, information security manager for Minnesota State University at Mankato. "This is the guy that thinks he is helping by running pre-release software he downloaded from BitTorrent. This guy has all the passwords of the other users in his office and acts as the unappointed first line of technical support. Instead, he frequently breaks things."
Not only do Power Users cause support and management headaches, they can be walking, talking security nightmares, says The Security Consortium's Mark Kadrich.
"They're usually engineering types or Ph.D.s who firmly believe they know more about the computer and network than you do," he says. "They insist on having admin/root access so they can 'configure' their custom applications or memory, and believe firewalls are for the unwashed masses. They're 'savvy' and can outwit any hacker on the planet. Besides, they 'don't have anything that a hacker would want,' so why should they worry? Their naiveté borders on the criminal."
Recognizing the enemy: They might be wearing Armani or T-shirts and flip-flops, but they're carrying a jailbroken iPhone in one hand [13], a Palm Pre in the other, and two laptops in their bag. Also: Anyone with a "Dr." in his or her title.
Your best defense: PsychOps. The only way to get a Power User's attention is to scare the hell out of them, then gradually bring them over to your side, says Kadrich. The exact approach depends on the position they hold in the corporate ranks.
"Executives don't give a damn about security, but they do care about their brand," he says. "You tell them, 'What you just did caused a huge number of emails to go out proving how screwed up our brand is.' That generally gets their attention."
For lesser tribe members, Kadrich makes the threat personal. Thanks to the Power Users' meathead behavior, their personal financial information has been compromised; now they have to call their bank and cancel all their accounts.
The second prong of attack? Training and awareness. Low-key regular luncheon sessions talking about the latest security breaches is the most effective way to alter people's behavior, he adds.
"You want to make the people in your organization security ambassadors," he says. "Taking the enemies of IT and converting them into true believers is the best approach."
IT enemy No. 4: The Politico [14]
IT enemy No. 4: The PoliticoAs technology rises in importance across virtually every organization, office politicians will be looking to surf the IT wave into the executive suite -- even if they have to ride on your back to do it.
That's why CIOs who play politics are IT enemy No. 1, says Steven Levy, CEO of Lexician Consulting. "These CIOs don't understand the businesses they serve, and they'll say or do anything to get 'a seat at the table.'"
In the long run, says Levy, they end up undermining the value of IT to the enterprise.
"When they talk about reducing complexity, they mean cutting the number of applications IT has to support, not simplifying the life of the business customers they serve," he says. "They talk about IT being up to date and then can't figure out how to roll out a new version of Windows or Office until three years after it shipped. They hire bureaucrats that they think are technocrats, but the technologists in IT laugh at their skills. And they're terrified by the idea that departments and business teams might develop their own applications, seeing that as a threat to their fiefdoms rather than as a way to help the business support itself."
Recognizing the enemy: Look for managers who've mastered the art of talking out of both sides of their mouths at the same time, says Levy.
Your best defense: Dig a trench and try to outlast them. Effective CEOs are veterans at spotting those playing office politics, and the CIO honeymoon period may be short, notes Levy. Or make allies with high command to shield yourself from radioactive fallout when things implode.
"The best solution is to get the business leaders in the C-suite or with highly respected voices to laud your work and talk up your solutions, thus covering your back in a way that the CIO can't effectively undermine," says Levy.
Next: IT enemy No. 5: The Freeloader [15]
IT enemy No. 5: The FreeloaderIf you know anything about technology, you've surely encountered this time- and patience-sapping foe. A "simple" question about computers morphs into demands for free 24/7 tech help when you have actual paying customers to support.
"The absolute worst offenders are people who assume that they can pick up the phone and call you anytime they have even the most minor computer problems," says Dan Nainan, a comedian and "computer genius" whose acting credits include an "I'm a Mac" commercial [video] [16] (he's the guy in the bubble wrap). "Having been a senior engineer with Intel and a computer nerd for my entire adult life, I am beset on all sides by people who think they can just pick up the phone and call me anytime with a computer question. Haven't these people ever heard of Google?"
Clueless and greedy users are the No. 1 enemy, agrees Howard Sherman, founder of on-demand tech support site RoyalGeeks. "They don't have a clue, don't want a clue, and don't even know what a clue is, yet they expect you to answer each and every question they have at work, on the golf course, at a dinner party, the bar, or a bar mitzvah. They shamelessly suck the knowledge out of you, in addition to your will to live."
Recognizing the enemy: When they find out what you do for a living they immediately (a) ask for your card, (b) start flirting shamelessly, or (c) launch into a tale of technical woe.
Your best defense: If possible, retreat. "When you spot a user like this just start running down the hall screaming," suggests Sherman.
Unfortunately, since you're often related to these people, you will eventually run into them at weddings and funerals. Dan Nainan keeps a short list of those who deserve tier-one support -- like his agent or the superintendent of his NYC apartment building. The rest he sends to voice mail or redirects to actual tech support lines. "I find if you wait 24 hours the problem solves itself -- or they've found some other sucker to fix it for them," he says.
IT enemy No. 6: You/Me/Us [17]
IT enemy No. 6: You/Me/UsWe have met the enemy and he is us, to quote Pogo's Walt Kelly. When things go wrong with technology, IT people often have no one to blame but themselves [18].
"I'd say human nature is the primary 'enemy' of IT people," says Vladimir Chernavsky, president of DeviceLock, provider of data leak prevention software. "We as humans can be reckless beings who don't feel the need to follow protocols at all times. We can take things for granted, which will result in doing wrong or stupid things, creating havoc and annoyance for people working in IT."
Scott Dunlap, author of "The Dung Beetle Manager [19]," says IT people can be their own worst enemies [20], in part due to both an excess of optimism and overconfidence in their own abilities.
"IT people want to say yes and they want to impress," he says. "But what ends up happening is that, each time they try to circumvent normal procedures for deploying enterprise IT, they end up taking some shortcuts around some hard but necessary steps. Just like you can't make a baby in four months, you can't make IT work without following the right processes."
Recognizing the enemy: Look in the mirror, my friend.
Your best defense: Return to boot camp. Discipline and training help IT pros avoid succumbing to their weaker natures, says Chernavsky. However, no matter how well trained you and your IT colleagues may be, you'll still have to deal with users who aren't, he adds.
"Adopt a disciplined process and hold to it as much as the physics and politics of your systems will allow," advises Dunlap. "Anchor yourself to a good foundational systems-engineering and software-development process. That's the only insurance you have against a lot of stuff getting out of hand."
Created 2010-02-01 03:00AM
Everybody keeps a list of the people who make their jobs and lives more difficult, even if they never write it down. It's a safe bet that IT pros' lists are longer than most.
You might think IT's greatest enemies are cyber criminals and malware authors. But far worse are those who make the lives of these evildoers that much easier. In fact, the greatest enemies of IT are members of the community IT serves: from clueless suits to annoying power users, from miserly managers to those friends and family members who are always hitting you up for free tech support. Any one of them can keep you from doing your best -- or getting anything done at all.
[ Find out which of our eight classic IT personality profiles [1] best suit your temperament. Learn about IT's dirtiest jobs [2], or have a laugh thanks to your network's weakest link in "Stupid user tricks 4: IT horror never ends [3]" ]
Making an "enemies" list is not just a cathartic exercise but also a useful one, says Mark Kadrich, CEO of The Security Consortium.
"Though they often curse the user community, most IT pros don't spend the time to identify good users from the bad ones," he says. "You ask most of them how many users have administrative access to their systems, and the answer is usually either 'I don't know' or 'all of them.' I think they need to take more time to classify their user communities."
Here are the classic enemies of IT, how to recognize them, and what you can do to keep them at bay.
Which tech enemies did we miss? Post your suggestions below [4].
IT enemy No. 1: The Ostrich [5]
IT enemy No. 1: The OstrichThe biggest enemy of many IT pros: bosses who bury their heads in the sand when it comes to technology [6], yet are still empowered to make critical IT decisions.
Businesspeople become the enemy when they refuse to acknowledge they have a role to play in how IT operates, says Daniel Teachey, senior director of marketing for data-quality specialists DataFlux. "Even if it's something as simple as defining what the term 'customer' means to their business," he says. "Data informs every action the business takes, and unless the business side takes some role in the management of data, IT will be left holding the bag and getting all the blame."
[7]
Even worse, upper management types that don't understand concepts like network security, yet override critical decisions of their network admins, says Randy Abrams, director of technical education for security vendor ESET [8].
"If you are in charge of network security but have no power to make decisions, then your job is to take the blame when things go wrong," he adds.
The classic example: email attachments.
"Several years ago IT managers had an incredibly hard time getting management to allow them to block executable attachments in email," says Abrams. "There was rarely a case when an executable file actually needed to be emailed, and the security advantages of blocking far outweighed the potential business costs of having these files blocked. Eventually the blocking of executables was built into Outlook, but it was a mindless battle of the clued vs. the powerful clueless for a long time."
Recognizing the enemy: That glazed-over look when confronted with technical questions, or the moment they open their mouths, says Abrams.
"They tend to say no first without ever understanding the problem or seeing the trade-offs -- even when the trade-offs are things that can ruin the business," he says.
Your best defense: Seek air support from high command.
"You need a data governance plan that spans the entire organization, which means getting a CXO type to step in and say, 'This is the way it's going to be,'" says DataFlux's Teachey. "They're the only ones with the will, the persuasiveness, and most importantly the budget to get it done."
But what if there's no one to give support from above?
"Then you're between a rock and a hard spot," notes ESET's Abrams. "The best you can do is hope to educate them. Figure out the best way to state your case so that it makes sense. Come up with a good analogy that's relevant to them. Knowledge can be power, but only if it's shared."
IT enemy No. 2: The Penny Pincher[9]
IT enemy No. 2: The Penny PincherWhether it's an enterprise-level CFO or a small-business owner, a penny-wise/pound-foolish manager can stand in the way of necessary IT investments -- making your job much harder.
Penny-pinching CFOs are among the biggest enemies of IT, says Nancee Melby, director of product marketing at Shavlik Technologies [10]. "Any CFO who thinks the free patching solutions from Microsoft are good enough needs to find a new job -- or get out of IT's business. Leaving your keys in the car and only locking the driver's door will keep out only the stupid criminals."
Granted, IT can be a bottomless pit, notes Peter Marsack, director of business development for Vision Computer Solutions, an IT services firm for SMBs. But that can often lead to an irrational fear of all spending.
"The beauty of technology is you can dump a virtually limitless amount of capital at it and still have problems in your technical infrastructure," he says. "Because of this, getting purchasing requests approved can be a tedious process even if the cause is just."
Marsack points to medical companies that refuse to become HIPAA-compliant -- despite the security benefits and the penalties noncompliance might incur -- simply because upgrading all their equipment cost too much.
"I have clients who refuse to replace their 7-year-old computers because 'they still work' even though their staff burns through 10 hours a week just waiting on slow machines," he adds. "Most people think they can just purchase computers, put a network in place, set it, and forget it. We have to explain to them these machines need to be maintained and supported."
Recognizing the enemy: Though you might garner clues from threadbare office furniture or those Windows 98 machines running in the reception area, the only way to know for sure is to ask pointed questions about how the organization allocates resources for technology, says Marsack.
"If they answer, 'We never do that,' or, 'We get things as we need them,' that's a red flag. If they say they devote X amount of dollars or allocate money on a regular schedule, they're more likely to invest the money required."
Your best defense: Gather intelligence. Find an incident where the organization's lack of IT investment hurt its bottom line -- say, a server that crashed or a backup that failed, leaving customers in the lurch -- and exploit it.
"These are the kinds of things that happen when you're not allocating appropriate resources to technology," Marsack says.
Still, he adds, defeating this enemy isn't easy.
"I've not met many people who enjoy writing a check for any amount budgeted for technology, even though their entire company runs on it," he says. "The person with the checkbook is the hardest person to please in the business."
IT enemy No. 3: The Power User[11]
IT enemy No. 3: The Power UserEvery IT pro has stories about plebes who suck the lifeblood from the help desk with questions about their PC's "any" key. But the real threat is posed by users who know just enough to be dangerous [12].
"For me the biggest enemy is not the clueless user, but the clued-in user who doesn't have the whole picture," says Kevin Thompson, information security manager for Minnesota State University at Mankato. "This is the guy that thinks he is helping by running pre-release software he downloaded from BitTorrent. This guy has all the passwords of the other users in his office and acts as the unappointed first line of technical support. Instead, he frequently breaks things."
Not only do Power Users cause support and management headaches, they can be walking, talking security nightmares, says The Security Consortium's Mark Kadrich.
"They're usually engineering types or Ph.D.s who firmly believe they know more about the computer and network than you do," he says. "They insist on having admin/root access so they can 'configure' their custom applications or memory, and believe firewalls are for the unwashed masses. They're 'savvy' and can outwit any hacker on the planet. Besides, they 'don't have anything that a hacker would want,' so why should they worry? Their naiveté borders on the criminal."
Recognizing the enemy: They might be wearing Armani or T-shirts and flip-flops, but they're carrying a jailbroken iPhone in one hand [13], a Palm Pre in the other, and two laptops in their bag. Also: Anyone with a "Dr." in his or her title.
Your best defense: PsychOps. The only way to get a Power User's attention is to scare the hell out of them, then gradually bring them over to your side, says Kadrich. The exact approach depends on the position they hold in the corporate ranks.
"Executives don't give a damn about security, but they do care about their brand," he says. "You tell them, 'What you just did caused a huge number of emails to go out proving how screwed up our brand is.' That generally gets their attention."
For lesser tribe members, Kadrich makes the threat personal. Thanks to the Power Users' meathead behavior, their personal financial information has been compromised; now they have to call their bank and cancel all their accounts.
The second prong of attack? Training and awareness. Low-key regular luncheon sessions talking about the latest security breaches is the most effective way to alter people's behavior, he adds.
"You want to make the people in your organization security ambassadors," he says. "Taking the enemies of IT and converting them into true believers is the best approach."
IT enemy No. 4: The Politico [14]
IT enemy No. 4: The PoliticoAs technology rises in importance across virtually every organization, office politicians will be looking to surf the IT wave into the executive suite -- even if they have to ride on your back to do it.
That's why CIOs who play politics are IT enemy No. 1, says Steven Levy, CEO of Lexician Consulting. "These CIOs don't understand the businesses they serve, and they'll say or do anything to get 'a seat at the table.'"
In the long run, says Levy, they end up undermining the value of IT to the enterprise.
"When they talk about reducing complexity, they mean cutting the number of applications IT has to support, not simplifying the life of the business customers they serve," he says. "They talk about IT being up to date and then can't figure out how to roll out a new version of Windows or Office until three years after it shipped. They hire bureaucrats that they think are technocrats, but the technologists in IT laugh at their skills. And they're terrified by the idea that departments and business teams might develop their own applications, seeing that as a threat to their fiefdoms rather than as a way to help the business support itself."
Recognizing the enemy: Look for managers who've mastered the art of talking out of both sides of their mouths at the same time, says Levy.
Your best defense: Dig a trench and try to outlast them. Effective CEOs are veterans at spotting those playing office politics, and the CIO honeymoon period may be short, notes Levy. Or make allies with high command to shield yourself from radioactive fallout when things implode.
"The best solution is to get the business leaders in the C-suite or with highly respected voices to laud your work and talk up your solutions, thus covering your back in a way that the CIO can't effectively undermine," says Levy.
Next: IT enemy No. 5: The Freeloader [15]
IT enemy No. 5: The FreeloaderIf you know anything about technology, you've surely encountered this time- and patience-sapping foe. A "simple" question about computers morphs into demands for free 24/7 tech help when you have actual paying customers to support.
"The absolute worst offenders are people who assume that they can pick up the phone and call you anytime they have even the most minor computer problems," says Dan Nainan, a comedian and "computer genius" whose acting credits include an "I'm a Mac" commercial [video] [16] (he's the guy in the bubble wrap). "Having been a senior engineer with Intel and a computer nerd for my entire adult life, I am beset on all sides by people who think they can just pick up the phone and call me anytime with a computer question. Haven't these people ever heard of Google?"
Clueless and greedy users are the No. 1 enemy, agrees Howard Sherman, founder of on-demand tech support site RoyalGeeks. "They don't have a clue, don't want a clue, and don't even know what a clue is, yet they expect you to answer each and every question they have at work, on the golf course, at a dinner party, the bar, or a bar mitzvah. They shamelessly suck the knowledge out of you, in addition to your will to live."
Recognizing the enemy: When they find out what you do for a living they immediately (a) ask for your card, (b) start flirting shamelessly, or (c) launch into a tale of technical woe.
Your best defense: If possible, retreat. "When you spot a user like this just start running down the hall screaming," suggests Sherman.
Unfortunately, since you're often related to these people, you will eventually run into them at weddings and funerals. Dan Nainan keeps a short list of those who deserve tier-one support -- like his agent or the superintendent of his NYC apartment building. The rest he sends to voice mail or redirects to actual tech support lines. "I find if you wait 24 hours the problem solves itself -- or they've found some other sucker to fix it for them," he says.
IT enemy No. 6: You/Me/Us [17]
IT enemy No. 6: You/Me/UsWe have met the enemy and he is us, to quote Pogo's Walt Kelly. When things go wrong with technology, IT people often have no one to blame but themselves [18].
"I'd say human nature is the primary 'enemy' of IT people," says Vladimir Chernavsky, president of DeviceLock, provider of data leak prevention software. "We as humans can be reckless beings who don't feel the need to follow protocols at all times. We can take things for granted, which will result in doing wrong or stupid things, creating havoc and annoyance for people working in IT."
Scott Dunlap, author of "The Dung Beetle Manager [19]," says IT people can be their own worst enemies [20], in part due to both an excess of optimism and overconfidence in their own abilities.
"IT people want to say yes and they want to impress," he says. "But what ends up happening is that, each time they try to circumvent normal procedures for deploying enterprise IT, they end up taking some shortcuts around some hard but necessary steps. Just like you can't make a baby in four months, you can't make IT work without following the right processes."
Recognizing the enemy: Look in the mirror, my friend.
Your best defense: Return to boot camp. Discipline and training help IT pros avoid succumbing to their weaker natures, says Chernavsky. However, no matter how well trained you and your IT colleagues may be, you'll still have to deal with users who aren't, he adds.
"Adopt a disciplined process and hold to it as much as the physics and politics of your systems will allow," advises Dunlap. "Anchor yourself to a good foundational systems-engineering and software-development process. That's the only insurance you have against a lot of stuff getting out of hand."
January 26, 2010
Cloud storage hype: Customers not buying it
For all the hype around cloud computing, few business customers are actually storing data on Web-based platforms, according to a new study that casts doubt on the popularity of cloud storage.
Just 3% of companies have implemented cloud storage, and the vast majority of the customers have no plans to put data in the cloud, according to a survey of 1,272 IT decision-makers at enterprises and SMBs in North America and Europe.
FAQ: Cloud computing, demystified
Storage vendors and IT professionals both have spent much time discussing the cloud over the past year, because data storage needs are growing at least 30% per year while budgets stay flat, writes Forrester analyst Andrew Reichman in the report ?Business Users Are Not Ready For Cloud Storage.?
But so far, ?this is just talk,? Reichman states.
?Respondents in all geographies and of all company sizes appear to have little interest in moving their data to the cloud any time soon,? he writes. ?There is long-term potential for storage-as-a-service, but Forrester sees issues with guaranteed service levels, security, chain of custody, shared tenancy, and long-term pricing as significant barriers that still need to be addressed before it takes off in any meaningful way.?
The Forrester survey asked IT decision makers if they have any plans to adopt cloud storage services such as Amazon S3, EMC Atmos, Nirvanix, The Planet, or AT&T.
Forty-three percent of respondents said they are not interested in cloud storage, and another 43% said they are interested but have no plans to adopt. Three percent plan to implement a cloud storage platform in the next 12 months, and another 5% plan to do so one year from now or later.
While 3% of respondents have already implemented cloud storage, only 1% are expanding an existing implementation.
In general, enterprises are slightly more interested in cloud storage than small- and medium-sized businesses, and interest in cloud storage for backup is greater than interest in general purpose storage clouds, Reichman says. The market has numerous mature backup services such as Asigra, EMC?s Mozy, i365, IBM Business Continuity and Resilience Services and Iron Mountain, he writes.
?Why the greater interest and adoption of backup-as-a-service? First, it?s a complete service offering, not just CPU or storage capacity,? he writes. ?You get the backup software intelligence and storage capacity in a fully managed service. Second, it?s solving a very specific pain point ? the pain of bringing a costly and error-prone, but very necessary, IT function under control. This is in contrast to storage-as-a-service offerings where the user has to figure out how to put it all together.?
Overall, though, storage-as-a-service offerings still need time to develop, Reichman says. Before adopting, customers need to consider how cloud storage integrates with existing applications and processes, and analyze the total cost over at least a three-year period.
?The hype is strong around storage-as-a-service, but given the fact that your peers are adopting it very slowly, it makes sense to wait on this,? Reichman writes. ?It?s likely to be several years before offerings are mature, so don?t rush into anything here.?
Follow Jon Brodkin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jbrodkin
Original story - www.networkworld.com/nwlookup.jsp?rid=198462
Just 3% of companies have implemented cloud storage, and the vast majority of the customers have no plans to put data in the cloud, according to a survey of 1,272 IT decision-makers at enterprises and SMBs in North America and Europe.
FAQ: Cloud computing, demystified
Storage vendors and IT professionals both have spent much time discussing the cloud over the past year, because data storage needs are growing at least 30% per year while budgets stay flat, writes Forrester analyst Andrew Reichman in the report ?Business Users Are Not Ready For Cloud Storage.?
But so far, ?this is just talk,? Reichman states.
?Respondents in all geographies and of all company sizes appear to have little interest in moving their data to the cloud any time soon,? he writes. ?There is long-term potential for storage-as-a-service, but Forrester sees issues with guaranteed service levels, security, chain of custody, shared tenancy, and long-term pricing as significant barriers that still need to be addressed before it takes off in any meaningful way.?
The Forrester survey asked IT decision makers if they have any plans to adopt cloud storage services such as Amazon S3, EMC Atmos, Nirvanix, The Planet, or AT&T.
Forty-three percent of respondents said they are not interested in cloud storage, and another 43% said they are interested but have no plans to adopt. Three percent plan to implement a cloud storage platform in the next 12 months, and another 5% plan to do so one year from now or later.
While 3% of respondents have already implemented cloud storage, only 1% are expanding an existing implementation.
In general, enterprises are slightly more interested in cloud storage than small- and medium-sized businesses, and interest in cloud storage for backup is greater than interest in general purpose storage clouds, Reichman says. The market has numerous mature backup services such as Asigra, EMC?s Mozy, i365, IBM Business Continuity and Resilience Services and Iron Mountain, he writes.
?Why the greater interest and adoption of backup-as-a-service? First, it?s a complete service offering, not just CPU or storage capacity,? he writes. ?You get the backup software intelligence and storage capacity in a fully managed service. Second, it?s solving a very specific pain point ? the pain of bringing a costly and error-prone, but very necessary, IT function under control. This is in contrast to storage-as-a-service offerings where the user has to figure out how to put it all together.?
Overall, though, storage-as-a-service offerings still need time to develop, Reichman says. Before adopting, customers need to consider how cloud storage integrates with existing applications and processes, and analyze the total cost over at least a three-year period.
?The hype is strong around storage-as-a-service, but given the fact that your peers are adopting it very slowly, it makes sense to wait on this,? Reichman writes. ?It?s likely to be several years before offerings are mature, so don?t rush into anything here.?
Follow Jon Brodkin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jbrodkin
Original story - www.networkworld.com/nwlookup.jsp?rid=198462
January 18, 2010
Almost 60% of small firms admit their business suffered from last week's snow through lack of business continuity, shows GoToMyPC poll
Almost 60% of UK small businesses admit their business suffered as a result of the winter weather last week, despite 78% saying they thought their company was prepared to cope with the snow chaos, according to a survey commissioned by Citrix GoToMyPC.
The YouGov poll of over 500 senior decision makers at small firms showed some firms did take measures to improve business continuity. The survey found that 25% of companies enabled more staff to work from home, and 10% held more online meetings. But small businesses could have done more to prepare, as only 42% said they have a business continuity plan in place.
A quarter of small firms said staff were late into work, while 26% reported that some staff couldn’t make it into the workplace at all. In addition, 21% found that key suppliers and contacts were not available, and 26% had to cancel or postpone business meetings.
As many as 74% of British workers were affected by last week’s winter conditions, with 8% forced to stay home due to school closures and 12% not able to work at all, according to a related GoToMyPC study of more than 2,000 adults.
Andrew Millard, director of eCommerce EMEA for Citrix Online’s GoToMyPC, said, “Many businesses thought they were sufficiently prepared to handle the snow, but the sheer scale of the disruption and a lack of planning from the government has taken its toll. With more snow on the way, now is the time to revisit or put in place business continuity plans."
Citrix GoToMyPC top five tips for businesses to stand them in good stead for handling the unexpected:
Communicate clearly in advance with your workers so that they know what they need to do if they can’t get into the office.
Equip employees with remote access and web conferencing technology.
Communicate with your customers – let them know of potential problems as early as possible and keep communication channels open.
Consider alternatives – for instance, conduct meetings online instead.
Put in place a business continuity leader responsible for coordinating efforts and informing all staff of the potential impacts and company policies.
The YouGov poll of over 500 senior decision makers at small firms showed some firms did take measures to improve business continuity. The survey found that 25% of companies enabled more staff to work from home, and 10% held more online meetings. But small businesses could have done more to prepare, as only 42% said they have a business continuity plan in place.
A quarter of small firms said staff were late into work, while 26% reported that some staff couldn’t make it into the workplace at all. In addition, 21% found that key suppliers and contacts were not available, and 26% had to cancel or postpone business meetings.
As many as 74% of British workers were affected by last week’s winter conditions, with 8% forced to stay home due to school closures and 12% not able to work at all, according to a related GoToMyPC study of more than 2,000 adults.
Andrew Millard, director of eCommerce EMEA for Citrix Online’s GoToMyPC, said, “Many businesses thought they were sufficiently prepared to handle the snow, but the sheer scale of the disruption and a lack of planning from the government has taken its toll. With more snow on the way, now is the time to revisit or put in place business continuity plans."
Citrix GoToMyPC top five tips for businesses to stand them in good stead for handling the unexpected:
Communicate clearly in advance with your workers so that they know what they need to do if they can’t get into the office.
Equip employees with remote access and web conferencing technology.
Communicate with your customers – let them know of potential problems as early as possible and keep communication channels open.
Consider alternatives – for instance, conduct meetings online instead.
Put in place a business continuity leader responsible for coordinating efforts and informing all staff of the potential impacts and company policies.
January 11, 2010
January 5, 2010
UK government needs to do more to raise awareness of business continuity: BIBA
The British Insurance Brokers’ Association (BIBA) is calling on the government to help raise awareness of business continuity after independent research commissioned by BIBA revealed that 45 percent of businesses have no, or at very best, rough plans business continuity plans.
Steve Foulsham, BIBA technical services manager, commented: “There have been slight improvements since our previous research in 2006 but we still have concerns that businesses are still not adequately protected. Every business needs to be properly prepared for a major incident. I urge every small business to urgently speak to their broker to ensure they are properly covered.”
Steve Foulsham added: “It is vital to raise and maintain awareness of the need for businesses to prepare for the potential impacts of a natural disaster or terrorist attack. The Buncefield Oil Depot fire, 7/7 bombings and continued incidents of flooding illustrate the need for all to plan for the unexpected.
“BIBA will call for the support of the government in campaigning for all businesses to set continuity plans in place.”
Key findings from the BIBA survey included:
* Businesses are most likely to plan for the loss of physical equipment; loss of IT, premises, telecommunications and plant are the risks most likely to be covered by business continuity plans.
* BCPs are least likely to address negative publicity and the loss of overdraft and loan facilities.
* Only 37 per cent of businesses have credit insurance protection in terms of their suppliers and / or customers.
* The number of businesses saying a disaster or serious disruption on their premises would ‘significantly impact’ their company within an hour has increased slightly, from 19 percent in 2006 to 24 percent in 2009. However, the number saying the impact would occur after an hour but within the day has decreased by a corresponding number – from 31 percent to 27 percent.
* Businesses are now more pessimistic about their ability to operate without their office than they were in 2006. The number saying that if a disaster left their office unable to operate they could recover in less than a week has dropped from 39 percent in 2006 to 28 percent in 2009.
* The numbers who claim it would take more than six months for their business to recover has nearly trebled – from 4 percent in 2006, to 11 percent in 2009.
* Few (15 percent) of the directors interviewed were aware of BS 25999.
* There has been a slight rise in the number of businesses with comprehensive business interruption cover; from 84 percent in 2006, to 88 percent in 2009.
* Of the businesses who have rough or no business continuity plans, 66 percent felt that they could cope without a written plan, 34 percent felt that a putting a formal plan together would be too time consuming and 26 percent had never thought about it or would not know where to start.
* 43 percent of businesses have no protection against denial of access to their business premises. This is available as an extension to business interruption insurance.
* Of the businesses who were affected by the 2007 floods, 60 percent were affected by loss of plant or equipment, 30 percent were affected by loss of premises and 30 percent were affected by sudden significant decrease in trade or demand.
* 61 percent of businesses felt that the financial security rating of their insurance company was important.
biba.org.uk
Steve Foulsham, BIBA technical services manager, commented: “There have been slight improvements since our previous research in 2006 but we still have concerns that businesses are still not adequately protected. Every business needs to be properly prepared for a major incident. I urge every small business to urgently speak to their broker to ensure they are properly covered.”
Steve Foulsham added: “It is vital to raise and maintain awareness of the need for businesses to prepare for the potential impacts of a natural disaster or terrorist attack. The Buncefield Oil Depot fire, 7/7 bombings and continued incidents of flooding illustrate the need for all to plan for the unexpected.
“BIBA will call for the support of the government in campaigning for all businesses to set continuity plans in place.”
Key findings from the BIBA survey included:
* Businesses are most likely to plan for the loss of physical equipment; loss of IT, premises, telecommunications and plant are the risks most likely to be covered by business continuity plans.
* BCPs are least likely to address negative publicity and the loss of overdraft and loan facilities.
* Only 37 per cent of businesses have credit insurance protection in terms of their suppliers and / or customers.
* The number of businesses saying a disaster or serious disruption on their premises would ‘significantly impact’ their company within an hour has increased slightly, from 19 percent in 2006 to 24 percent in 2009. However, the number saying the impact would occur after an hour but within the day has decreased by a corresponding number – from 31 percent to 27 percent.
* Businesses are now more pessimistic about their ability to operate without their office than they were in 2006. The number saying that if a disaster left their office unable to operate they could recover in less than a week has dropped from 39 percent in 2006 to 28 percent in 2009.
* The numbers who claim it would take more than six months for their business to recover has nearly trebled – from 4 percent in 2006, to 11 percent in 2009.
* Few (15 percent) of the directors interviewed were aware of BS 25999.
* There has been a slight rise in the number of businesses with comprehensive business interruption cover; from 84 percent in 2006, to 88 percent in 2009.
* Of the businesses who have rough or no business continuity plans, 66 percent felt that they could cope without a written plan, 34 percent felt that a putting a formal plan together would be too time consuming and 26 percent had never thought about it or would not know where to start.
* 43 percent of businesses have no protection against denial of access to their business premises. This is available as an extension to business interruption insurance.
* Of the businesses who were affected by the 2007 floods, 60 percent were affected by loss of plant or equipment, 30 percent were affected by loss of premises and 30 percent were affected by sudden significant decrease in trade or demand.
* 61 percent of businesses felt that the financial security rating of their insurance company was important.
biba.org.uk
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