CIOs today are being called upon to interpret business strategy and priorities, then add value through information technology initiatives. At a time when “critical to the business” translates to “mission-critical IT,” how do you ensure end-to-end availability and reliability of the IT resources that enable your company’s essential business processes?
This series comes to you from Stratus Technologies, a leader in mission-critical availability for more than 25 years.
Step 1: Don’t assume. Assess.
At the same time expectations for service delivery are rising, CIOs are taking steps to bring IT into closer alignment with the business. And the more intrinsic IT applications and services become to business processes, the more they becomemission-critical.
These increasing demands mean it’s probably time to reassess your mission-critical environment against the job you are being asked to do.
For example, tougher mandates for information security and regulatory compliance require complete,auditable data. Not to mention that more users, more customers and more partners are probably counting on your IT services. If so, every hour of downtime will cost your company
more.
Maximizing the end-to-end availability of your mission-critical environment involves more than technology, of course. Procedures, policies and how people carry them out every day are vital. The same goes for security measures. It is important to understand the state of these elements and the dependencies between them. An up-to-date audit of your IT environment provides a baseline for staying in step with business needs.
Even when you believe your IT infrastructure is delivering optimal availability, a review can reveal new or overlooked information. Perhaps incremental changes such as software patches have introduced risk factors that have escaped notice. An assessment can also show whether previous efforts were as successful as they could be.
Waqas Ahmed
http://www.teethree.com
No comments:
Post a Comment