Charlotte Business Journal:

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But just because businesses owners know they shouledo it, that doesn't mean they are doing it. Jeff Portet runs the data management forum for the Storage NetworkinggIndustry Association, an international standards organizatiobn for electronic storage companies. He said therew hasn't been a noticeable increase in the number of businesses backing up theie filessince Katrina. "I don't think it takes a lot to convincew people now of the need to back theirfilee up," Porter said. "But it's still very difficultg to convince them totake action." He said that's because it is such a tediouzs task.
Even though there are plenty of firms that specializ in storingother companies' information, the nature of the process demand hundreds of "executive" according to Porter. "It's not so much the cost that keepsw companies fromdoing it," Porter said. "It's the fact that the company'ds decision-makers have to spend their own time figurinfg out what needsto It's something that can't be delegated." But along with other nationakl organizations, say there are several steps companies can take to make the procesd less of a Before a company even starts lookinyg for a third party storagw vendor, it needs to figure out what information is vita enough to be stored.
"There has to be a formalized collaboratiobnbetween management, operations and any busines s partners involved," he said. "Don't expect it to be a quicik process. It's going to take a lot of meetings betweemn a lotof divisions." Once a companyu figures out what information needs to be kept safe, Portere said it must decide how the informatiom should be stored. He explainefd that there are differing degrees of access to the informationh fora business. For example, an insurance companty would want recent claims to be more accessible than thosde made 10years ago. Porte said that once this is decided, a companuy can start looking for astorage vendor.
He said the best placre to start searching is throughhis organization'xs directory, which he said is unbiasede and neutral. Other tradew organizations, such as Enterprise Content Management Association, also represent hundreds of storagre vendors and make thosee listsavailable online. Porter also recommends gettin g customer reviews and making sure a vendo r hasgood press. He said if possible, a company should test a vendorr out by doing smalltrial installations. Portef explained that companies often use more thanone "Some vendors are better for storing long-termm information," he said. "Otherds are better at givin youimmediate access.
You have to find the right fit for each portioj ofdata you're storing." To get the lowes t cost, Porter said many companies try to get several vendors into a bidding war. "But cost isn' t the most important thing here," he said. "If somethingf happened and you had to depend onthe vendor's services to stay in business, the last thing you'd want is to have compromisedf quality just so you saved some costs.
" When it comes to how far away a companyt should electronically store itsbackup data, 15 miles used to be the rule of But after the widespread destructionm of Katrina, experts say information shoul d be stored in geographic regions that won't be affected by the same "Katrina not only increased awareness, " Porter said. "It also rewrotd a lot of the ruled we usedto have. It showed our industry what needef tobe improved." One of those improvements, according to Porter, is how often a compan y should test its backup plan. He explained that many Katrina-affected companies had backup plans, but discovered they were out-of-date when the disaster actually hit.
"A business is constantly evolving," he said. consequently, so are your backup needs." Porter said a company should, with the assistanc e of its vendor, refresn its backup plan at leastg annually. He said many companies actuall ytest quarterly, dividing the process up into separate But Porter said the biggest mistake companiesw make, and one that Katrinz highlighted, is that they focus too much on storagd and not enough on recovery. "Whenh you initially sit down you need to figure out how fast you need to recovere whensomething happens," he "You may back everything up properly, but then it takeds you 30 days to access it and be up and runnin g again.
Many companies can't survive that kind of delay." Computers, Technology and Telecommunicationsz