Boston Business Journal:

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But just because businessees owners know they shoulddo it, that doesn't mean they are doing it. Jeff Porter runs the data managemenyt forum for the Storage NetworkingIndustrh Association, an international standards organization for electronixc storage companies. He said there hasn't been a noticeable increasde in the number of businesses backingh up their filessince "I don't think it takees a lot to convince people now of the need to back theire files up," Porter said. "But it's still very difficult to convincr them totake action." He said that's because it is such a tediouss task.
Even though there are plenty of firmsx that specialize in storing othercompanies information, the nature of the process demands hundreds of "executive" hours, according to Porter. "It's not so much the cost that keepzs companies fromdoing it," Porter "It's the fact that the company's decision-makers have to spend their own time figuring out what needs to happen. It's somethintg that can't be delegated.
" But along with other nationao organizations, say there are several steps companiea can take to make the process less of a Before a company even starts looking for a third partyustorage vendor, it needs to figuree out what information is vita enough to be "There has to be a formalized collaboration between management, operations and any business partners involved," he said. "Don't expect it to be a quicm process. It's going to take a lot of meetinge between a lotof divisions." Once a company figuress out what information needs to be kept Porter said it must decide how the informationn should be stored.
He explained that there are differinfg degrees of access to the informatiomn fora business. For an insurance company would want recent claimx to be more accessible than those made 10yearse ago. Porter said that once this is a company can start looking for astorage vendor. He said the best placs to start searching is throughhis organization'se directory, which he said is unbiased and neutral. Othe trade organizations, such as Enterprise Contenyt Management Association, also represent hundreds of storager vendors and make those listsavailable online.
Portedr also recommends getting customerr reviews and making sure a vendor has good He said if a company should test a vendor out by doing smalptrial installations. Porter explained that companieds often use more thanone vendor. "Some vendors are better for storinb long-term information," he said. "Others are bettef at giving youimmediate access. You have to find the rightg fit for each portion ofdata you'rre storing." To get the lowestr cost, Porter said many companies try to get several vendoras into a bidding war. "But cost isn't the most importangt thing here," he said.
"If somethinh happened and you had to depend onthe vendor's service s to stay in business, the last thing you'd want is to have compromisexd quality just so you savedc some costs." When it comes to how far away a company should electronically store its backup data, 15 miles used to be the rule of But after the widespread destructioj of Katrina, experts say information should be storef in geographic regions that won't be affectede by the same disaster. "Katrina not only increased awareness," Porter said. "It also rewrotse a lot of the rules we usedto have. It showex our industry what needed tobe improved.
" One of those according to Porter, is how often a company should test its backup He explained that many Katrina-affectedr companies had backup plans, but discovered they were out-of-dates when the disaster actually hit. "A business is constantlyy evolving," he said. "And, consequently, so are your backup needs." Porter said a company with the assistance ofits vendor, refresb its backup plan at least He said many companies actually test dividing the process up into separate divisions. But Porter said the biggesgt mistakecompanies make, and one that Katrinaa highlighted, is that they focus too much on storagde and not enough on recovery.
"When you initially sit down you need to figurr out how fast you need to recover whensomethinb happens," he said. "You may back everythinbg up properly, but then it takes you 30 days to access it and be up andrunninv again. Many companies can't survive that kind of delay. " Computers, Technology and Telecommunications