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Overview
In today’s highly competitive and service oriented business environment, organisations are judged on their ability to continue to operate and provide the same level of service at all times.
Information Technology Service Continuity Management (ITSCM) or Disaster Recovery (DR) focuses on the IT Services required supporting and enabling the critical business processes. The impact of a loss of a business process, such as financial loss, damage to reputation or regulatory breach, is measured through a BIA, which determines the minimum critical requirements.
Usually ITSCM/DR is an aftermath in most organisations, but since legislations and actual Disaster incidents this topic has been in most executive’s agenda. Usually organisations make the huge risk error to think that if there is a Disaster Recovery or Disaster Hosting site in “place”, Disaster Recovery has been taken care off. This is unfortunately not the case!
If the IT services are not available to the business people using these service IT Service Continuity has not taken place yet.
The Approach
Firefly recommends that work relating to IT Service Continuity or Disaster Recovery, should follow a best practice methodology. In doing so, the organisation will protect their investment in the process and be able to incorporate this process with other future IT Service Management processes, with ease.
Our approach is based on the international best practice ITIL® that consists of four high-level stages, illustrated below. ITIL® is the most widely accepted approach to IT Service Management in the world, ITIL® provides a comprehensive and consistent set of best practices for IT Service Management, promoting a quality approach to achieving business effectiveness and efficiency in the use of information systems. One of the disciplines in the ITIL framework is ITSCM and BSCM has its base developed from it and this has been distilled into one reliable, coherent approach.
It is also critical to ensure that your DR project is treated as a formal project with a known Project Management methodology such as PRINCE2®.
Key Benefits
· The safeguard of the performance of services in any eventuality based on planning and implementation of preventive
measures.
· Management of risk and the consequent reduction of the impact of failure.
· Potentially lower insurance premiums due to reducing risk probability.
· Fulfilment of mandatory or regulatory requirements such as King II and SOX.
· Improved relationships between the business and IT through IT becoming more business focused, and more aware of
business impacts and priorities.
· Reduced business disruption during an incident, with an ability to recover services efficiently in business priority order.
· Increased Customer confidence, possible competitive advantage and increased organisational credibility.
· Improved IT service quality.
· After successful implementation and testing, IT Services are delivered and can be recovered to meet business objectives.
Business benefits
· Compliance to Corporate Governance - e.g. King II, SOX, etc.
· Recovery in case a disaster may happen.
· Alignment of business services and the support of IT.
· IT Service Continuity procedures are more focused on the business needs and there will be more confidence in the ability to
follow them when required.
· Better working relationships between the Customers and the IT service provider.
· Shareholder risk reduction by ensuring that IT can recover successfully during a possible disaster.
· Short downtime in case of a disaster.
Financial benefits
· By ensuring that Business can continue it reduce the risk of financial lost during a possible disaster.
· Shareholder investment due to lower risk for investment.
Employee benefits
· More motivated staff; improved job satisfaction through better understanding of ITSCM.
· Improved visibility and reputation of the IT department again leading to more motivated staff.
· IT and business staff will know what is expected of them.
· Increased productivity of IT staff.
Innovation benefits
· Clearer understanding of the requirements of the IT service provision will ensure that IT services are delivered that underpin
business processes.
· Better information on current services (and possibly on areas where Changes would bring most benefits).
Internal benefits
· Improved metrics and management reporting for BSCM.
· Improved communications and inter-team working (both IT and Customer).
· Clearly defined roles and responsibilities.
· Clearer view of current IT capability.
· Process maturity benefits that are repeatable, consistent and self-improving.
Services
Firefly offers a full range of ITSCM services from Initiating IT Service Continuity Management and establishing the ITSC organisation through to Operational Management (Continuous maintenance, testing and training).
The ITSC Assessment
Firefly’s ITSC Assessment is used to gather information relating to the IT Infrastructures and their governance. A thorough ITSC Assessment yields a firm foundation for the first two stages of the ITSC process model (BIA & RA). The ITSC Assessment process also ensures continuous delivery of a professional and high standard of services to all clients.
Business Impact Analysis and Risk Assessment (BIA & RA)
Any successful organisation is supported by critical business processes and technologies which ensure the proper transfer of information and ultimately yields high-levels of profitability.
A BIA identifies the following;
· The critical business processes and services.
· The potential damage or loss that may be caused to the organisation as a result of a disruption to the critical business
processes and services.
The RA is done to determine the probability of a disaster actually occurring and the actual threat it poses to the organisation, thus exposing the organisations’ vulnerabilities to these threats.
The BIA & RA is thus used to determine the organisations’ ITSC requirements and therefore pave the way for the development of the ITSC Strategy to be implemented.
DR Plan Development, Implementation and Maintenance
In accordance to the requirements and set ITSC Strategy, a set of disaster recovery plans and procedures are developed. During the implementation phase the interim risks are mitigated through risk reduction measures and standby arrangements are established. Initial testing and walk-through of all plans and procedures are done before final hand-over. The maintenance or Operational Management of the ITSCM process is the final and ongoing stage of this process model.
In today’s highly competitive and service oriented business environment, organisations are judged on their ability to continue to operate and provide the same level of service at all times.
Information Technology Service Continuity Management (ITSCM) or Disaster Recovery (DR) focuses on the IT Services required supporting and enabling the critical business processes. The impact of a loss of a business process, such as financial loss, damage to reputation or regulatory breach, is measured through a BIA, which determines the minimum critical requirements.
Usually ITSCM/DR is an aftermath in most organisations, but since legislations and actual Disaster incidents this topic has been in most executive’s agenda. Usually organisations make the huge risk error to think that if there is a Disaster Recovery or Disaster Hosting site in “place”, Disaster Recovery has been taken care off. This is unfortunately not the case!
If the IT services are not available to the business people using these service IT Service Continuity has not taken place yet.
The Approach
Firefly recommends that work relating to IT Service Continuity or Disaster Recovery, should follow a best practice methodology. In doing so, the organisation will protect their investment in the process and be able to incorporate this process with other future IT Service Management processes, with ease.
Our approach is based on the international best practice ITIL® that consists of four high-level stages, illustrated below. ITIL® is the most widely accepted approach to IT Service Management in the world, ITIL® provides a comprehensive and consistent set of best practices for IT Service Management, promoting a quality approach to achieving business effectiveness and efficiency in the use of information systems. One of the disciplines in the ITIL framework is ITSCM and BSCM has its base developed from it and this has been distilled into one reliable, coherent approach.
It is also critical to ensure that your DR project is treated as a formal project with a known Project Management methodology such as PRINCE2®.
Key Benefits
· The safeguard of the performance of services in any eventuality based on planning and implementation of preventive
measures.
· Management of risk and the consequent reduction of the impact of failure.
· Potentially lower insurance premiums due to reducing risk probability.
· Fulfilment of mandatory or regulatory requirements such as King II and SOX.
· Improved relationships between the business and IT through IT becoming more business focused, and more aware of
business impacts and priorities.
· Reduced business disruption during an incident, with an ability to recover services efficiently in business priority order.
· Increased Customer confidence, possible competitive advantage and increased organisational credibility.
· Improved IT service quality.
· After successful implementation and testing, IT Services are delivered and can be recovered to meet business objectives.
Business benefits
· Compliance to Corporate Governance - e.g. King II, SOX, etc.
· Recovery in case a disaster may happen.
· Alignment of business services and the support of IT.
· IT Service Continuity procedures are more focused on the business needs and there will be more confidence in the ability to
follow them when required.
· Better working relationships between the Customers and the IT service provider.
· Shareholder risk reduction by ensuring that IT can recover successfully during a possible disaster.
· Short downtime in case of a disaster.
Financial benefits
· By ensuring that Business can continue it reduce the risk of financial lost during a possible disaster.
· Shareholder investment due to lower risk for investment.
Employee benefits
· More motivated staff; improved job satisfaction through better understanding of ITSCM.
· Improved visibility and reputation of the IT department again leading to more motivated staff.
· IT and business staff will know what is expected of them.
· Increased productivity of IT staff.
Innovation benefits
· Clearer understanding of the requirements of the IT service provision will ensure that IT services are delivered that underpin
business processes.
· Better information on current services (and possibly on areas where Changes would bring most benefits).
Internal benefits
· Improved metrics and management reporting for BSCM.
· Improved communications and inter-team working (both IT and Customer).
· Clearly defined roles and responsibilities.
· Clearer view of current IT capability.
· Process maturity benefits that are repeatable, consistent and self-improving.
Services
Firefly offers a full range of ITSCM services from Initiating IT Service Continuity Management and establishing the ITSC organisation through to Operational Management (Continuous maintenance, testing and training).
The ITSC Assessment
Firefly’s ITSC Assessment is used to gather information relating to the IT Infrastructures and their governance. A thorough ITSC Assessment yields a firm foundation for the first two stages of the ITSC process model (BIA & RA). The ITSC Assessment process also ensures continuous delivery of a professional and high standard of services to all clients.
Business Impact Analysis and Risk Assessment (BIA & RA)
Any successful organisation is supported by critical business processes and technologies which ensure the proper transfer of information and ultimately yields high-levels of profitability.
A BIA identifies the following;
· The critical business processes and services.
· The potential damage or loss that may be caused to the organisation as a result of a disruption to the critical business
processes and services.
The RA is done to determine the probability of a disaster actually occurring and the actual threat it poses to the organisation, thus exposing the organisations’ vulnerabilities to these threats.
The BIA & RA is thus used to determine the organisations’ ITSC requirements and therefore pave the way for the development of the ITSC Strategy to be implemented.
DR Plan Development, Implementation and Maintenance
In accordance to the requirements and set ITSC Strategy, a set of disaster recovery plans and procedures are developed. During the implementation phase the interim risks are mitigated through risk reduction measures and standby arrangements are established. Initial testing and walk-through of all plans and procedures are done before final hand-over. The maintenance or Operational Management of the ITSCM process is the final and ongoing stage of this process model.
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