Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Second Edition

Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery have, over the last five years, become critical business issues. The increasing dependence of organizations on IT systems and the growing range of threats they face - from acts of nature to terrorist attacks - mean that organizations unprepared for the worst usually do not survive the unexpected. Regulatory authorities recognize the challenge and, in the Basel Accord and in legislation from the UK's Companies Act 2006 to the US Sarbanes-Oxley Act, require company directors to take appropriate action to identify and deal with operational risk. Business continuity is one of the most important areas of operational risk and, for companies that wish to identify and apply best management practice in mitigating this risk, the emergence of the British Standard, BS25999, is a significant development. BS25999 is the world's first formal standard for business continuity management. It contains both a code of practice and a specification for a management system against which organizations can achieve third party accredited certification. Because they will be able to demonstrate to customers and partners their planned business resilience, organizations that have such a certificate will, inevitably, gain a competitive advantage over those that don't. This book is a welcome guide - for smaller companies - to all the key aspects of business continuity and disaster recovery planning.