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BCI ICT Resilience Workshop

17 March 2009 - 17 March 2009

GreenPark, Reading, UK

How can BCM keep up with cost-driven technology change?

During a recent ICT Resilience Advisory Panel meeting, it was recognised that organisations are now working under exceptional financial constraints and so cost-savings in ICT are a top priority. Coupled with this challenge are the parallel demands to increase capacity and improve utilisation; and not forgetting environmental impacts, a general lack of space for expansion and pressure to improve competitiveness through speed of delivery of new applications. This all adds up to continuing technology change which, for most organisations, means a transition to virtualisation of systems and resources, and outsourcing with an increasing number of product and service providers in the ICT supply-chain.

For those involved in continuity and recovery planning there is little in the way of good news. Technology change means a constant battle to maintain agreed levels of service continuity. New technologies may claim to provide additional benefits in terms of reliability, but investment in BCM is hampered by lack of funds. There is a renewed sense of urgency from executive management ... how can BCM keep up?

Following some further analysis, the Advisory Panel agreed that these challenges would best be addressed in a structured way: the Processes; the Technology; and then the People. We also recognised that, as with all BCI Workshops, many of the answers can be found within the approaches already adopted by delegates. We just need to share that knowledge and experience ... and that is the purpose of the Workshop.

Processes

Maintaining effective continuity and recovery measures starts with establishing appropriate governance structures and includes the adoption of relevant protocols, such as ITIL, BS 25999, BS 25777 and others. Technology strategies must be developed to reflect the needs of the business drivers, and these will differ from organisation to organisation. Outsourcing is a fact of life but greater attention must be paid to service-level agreements and contracts.

We aim to open the Workshop with a case study of how ICT recovery requirements can be defined as part of the corporate governance process. And we will also explore the standards and protocols that are available to support the delivery of these measures.

Technology

What are the recovery capabilities of new technologies ... and in particular, virtualisation? Another significant feature of technology change may be the decision to relocate data centre facilities, in whole or in part. How can continuity be maintained during the transition from old to new? And outsourcing again ... what certainty is there of reaping the potential BCM benefits of new technologies where delivery is subject to the limitations of a negotiated service-level agreement?

Within the Workshop programme we shall be inviting a leading authority to explain the BCM capabilities of virtualisation and provide us with some indication of the likely return-on-investment for continuity and recovery. Also, we have a case study that will explore the ability of new technologies to meet recovery time objectives and go on to look at the challenges of data-centre relocation.

People

We all agreed that the most crucial element of every BCP is the people but, amongst all the upheaval that accompanies corporate and technology change, there appears to be evidence that the ICT support teams in particular are often overlooked. Where support is provided to mission-critical applications and processes, then have the associated ICT developers been identified and included in the BCP?

The Workshop will explore "BCP for the ICT support teams" and consider the cultural issues for in-house groups, contract issues where support is outsourced and the notion that tightly-defined objectives may be counterproductive where continuity and recovery are concerned. And we will ask, "Is improving human communications the key to effective continuity planning?".

For further details and to register for this event, see ICT Resilience Workshop.