Most organizations have traditionally believed that having data backed up and stored
off-site is sufficient to ensure data recovery and maintenance of business operations. In this environment, well-defined disaster recovery plans and regular testing have not typically been priorities. In recent years, events such as the 9/11 attacks and the tsunami in Japan have caused many organizations to reassess their overall data protection strategies for data backup and recovery, disaster recovery and business continuity as well as long-term retention and security of their data.
However, most business downtime is caused not by catastrophic events or major natural
disasters, but by hardware failures, data loss, power outages or UPS failures, network outages, security breaches, human error and application failures. These factors can do just as much damage to the organization’s long-term performance and reputation.
As data volumes and retention requirements grow in response to business demands and
regulatory mandates, data protection strategies must ensure that critical business data can be accessed and recovered in a timely fashion.
Server and storage virtualization, data center consolidation, explosive data growth and new compliance requirements are major change drivers within the data center, but many IT organizations still employ data protection strategies from 5 or even 10 years ago. In a rapidly changing environment, determining the “right” data protection solution is no longer a black and white issue, but rather a grey area that involves myriad considerations that impact complexity, effectiveness, and cost.
This ISG white paper examines the importance of asset management to effective governance, identifies issues organizations typically experience with maintaining accurate inventories of assets, and defines keys to an effective asset management program.
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