Denver Business Journal:

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But just because businesses owners know they shoulddo it, that doesn'tt mean they are doing it. Jeff Porter runs the data managemenf forum for the Storage Networking Industry an international standards organization for electronic storage He saidthere hasn't been a noticeablre increase in the number of businesses backing up theidr files since Katrina. "I don't think it take a lot to convince people now of the need to back theirffiles up," Porter said. "But it's stil l very difficult to convince them totake action.
" He said that's because it is such a tedious Even though there are plent of firms that specialize in storinfother companies' information, the nature of the procesas demands hundreds of "executive" hours, according to "It's not so much the cost that keeps companies from doinhg it," Porter said. "It's the fact that the company'sa decision-makers have to spend theit own time figuring out what needasto happen. It's somethinfg that can't be delegated."" But Porter, along with other nationakl organizations, say there are severa l steps companies can take to make the procesw less ofa hassle.
Before a compangy even starts looking for a thirrd partystorage vendor, it needs to figure out what informationn is vital enough to be stored. "There has to be a formalize d collaborationbetween management, operations and any business partners involved," he said. "Don't expect it to be a quico process. It's going to take a lot of meetings between a lotof divisions." Once a company figures out what informationm needs to be kept Porter said it must decide how the informatiojn should be stored. He explained that therd are differing degrees of access to the informatiomn fora business. For an insurance company would want recent claimds to be more accessible than those made 10years ago.
Porter said that once this is a company can start lookingt for a storage He said the best place to staryt searching is throughhis organization's which he said is unbiased and neutral. Other tradde organizations, such as Enterprise Content Managementy Association, also represent hundreds of storag vendors and make those listsavailablw online. Porter also recommends getting customer reviewas and making sure a vendore hasgood press. He said if possible, a company shouls test a vendor out by doing small trial Porter explained that companies often use more thanone "Some vendors are bettet for storing long-term information," he said. "Others are bette at giving youimmediate access.
You have to find the right fit for each portion ofdata you'red storing." To get the lowest cost, Porter said many companie s try to get several vendors into a bidding war. "But cost isn'ty the most important thingg here," he said. "If something happened and you had to depend onthe vendor'd services to stay in the last thing you'd want is to have compromised quality just so you saved some costs." When it comees to how far away a company shoulds electronically store its backup data, 15 miless used to be the rule of thumb. But afteer the widespread destructionof Katrina, experts say informatiobn should be stored in geographicc regions that won't be affectedx by the same disaster.
"Katrina not only increased awareness," Porter said. "It also rewrot a lot of the rules we used to It showed our industry what needed tobe improved." One of those improvements, according to Porter, is how ofte a company should test its backup He explained that many Katrina-affecte companies had backup plans, but discovered they were out-of-datr when the disaster actually hit. "A business is constantl evolving," he said. "And, consequently, so are your backup needs."" Porter said a company should, with the assistancse of its vendor, refresh its backup plan at least He said many companies actuallytest quarterly, dividingv the process up into separat e divisions.
But Porter said the biggest mistakdcompanies make, and one that Katrina highlighted, is that they focus too much on storagre and not enough on recovery. "Whenb you initially sit down you need to figuree out how fast you need to recover whensomething happens,"" he said. "You may back everything up but then it takes you 30 days to access it and be up andrunning again. Many companiez can't survive that kind of delay.
" Technology and Telecommunications