In IT, failure is not an option. Not surprisingly, organizations have made it a high priority to develop and implement reliable business continuity plans to ensure that IT services are always available to internal users and outside customers.
But recent technology developments and trends, most notably server and desktop virtualization, cloud computing, the emergence of mobile devices in the workforce and social networks, are having an impact on how enterprises handle IT business continuity planning and testing. Much of the impact is for the better, experts say, but these trends can also create new challenges for IT, information security and risk management executives.
下面就来看看如何这些高科技的大趋势是专门影响IT业务连续性。（有关业务连续性规划整体的角度来看，包括更多的人员和资产，读业务连续性和灾难恢复计划：基础知识.)
使用这些快速链接导航到一个特定的技术：
Virtualization(this page)
Mobile devices in the workforce
Virtualization
Virtualization is making business continuity planning easier for IT executives and their organizations, if for no other reason than it's helping to reduce the number of IT assets, says George Muller, vice president, sales planning, supply chain & IT at Imperial Sugar Co, Sugar Land, Texas, one of the nation's largest processors and marketers of refined sugar.
"For those of us who have been in the IT world for a few years, we've seen the transition from the old large mainframes to client server to Web-based applications to cloud based computing," Muller says. "During that time the proliferation of PCs and servers has been wild."
[又读3 key issues for secure virtualizationby Bernard Golden]
有了这么多的设备维护和保持数据中心的运行，尤其是物理服务器，确保系统正常运行时间已经成为一个更大的挑战，穆勒说。2020欧洲杯预赛“通过虚拟化，我们现在已经能够降低装置，该装置当我们策划业务连续性现在我们已经得到了更少的器件担心[服务器]认为足迹。”
Server virtualization has allowed communications and compliance technology services provider Walz Group in Temecula Calif., to greatly reduce its planned outages, and largely eliminate unplanned downtime, says Bart Falzarano, CISO.
Using server virtualization, the company can manage, support and secure its applications more effectively, Falzarano says. Walz has been able to achieve higher virtualization efficiencies (a higher number of virtual machines to hypervisor host) using newer infrastructure technology.
The company is then able to leverage workload mobility capabilities locally that allow it to quickly switch virtual machines and applications between different physical resource pools of compute, memory and storage.
“维护、升级固件更新,中国国际广播电台tical patches, etc., Walz simply moves the applications away from the area being impacted by the maintenance activity," Falzarano says. "Once the maintenance activity, testing and quality control checks are complete, [we] may move the application back to that region or area."
虚拟化实际上已经对超过业务连续性灾难恢复有更大的影响说，约翰Morency研究公司Gartner公司在康涅狄格州斯坦福德的研究副总裁，尽管在任何方面一直在持续的影响是工作区恢复。
许多公司在工作区恢复站点的业务连续性，可能花费从$ 15到$ 25元座位商一直依靠，Morency说。
"But what more organizations are doing now is having people work at home or at Starbucks or the library or wherever," he says. "The use of Citrix, DVI and other desktop virtualization technologies, in conjunction with secure tunneling, is enabling organizations to implement broader and more distributed work area recovery."
Some businesses and functions, such a branch banks and客户服务呼叫中心, continue to use work area recovery services, Morency says. But a growing number of Gartner clients are leveraging virtualization to enable people to work offsite when needed, as an alternative to work area recovery.
[也可查看CSO的终极指南，业务连续性和灾难恢复 - 11页PDF报告，FREE CSO内幕需要注册]
雷切尔迪内斯，高级分析师，基础架构和运营，Forrester研究公司在剑桥马萨诸塞，说桌面或客户端，虚拟化比服务器虚拟化对业务连续性的影响要更大。
“客户端虚拟正在复苏的劳动力[可能]对于不能依靠从家里使用笔记本电脑工作的员工很多企业，”迪内斯说。
For example, at companies with highly sensitive information--such as financial services and insurance firms or government agencies--where employees are not issued laptops to prevent data leaks, client virtualization enables the rapid deployment of client images to disparate hardware at workforce recovery sites, Dines says.
此外，企业可以在互联网上部署客户端虚拟机，并允许员工在家里通过个人电脑访问它们。“无论哪种方式，用户都能够使用相同的环境，他们已经习惯于把每天的基础上，这意味着他们将在中断期间更富有成效的，”迪内斯说。
Cloud Computing
许多Gartner的客户越来越多地使用软件作为一种服务（SaaS）来支持业务流程，Morency说。
"With the use of SaaS for client-facing applications and even internal customer support applications there's a much improved means of continued availability, even in the presence of minor or major disruptions," Morency says. "You have a set of applications delivered from the cloud."
But this also imposes additional responsibilities on IT as far as being able to broker those services or provide additional problem management triage when necessary, Morency adds.
Walz组操作s a private cloud and uses cloud management tools that Falzarano says are a key to the company's business continuity initiatives. One such product the company is using is FlexPod, a data center management platform from Cisco Systems and NetApp that provides a design architecture with combined networking, computing and storage infrastructure.
[也可查看A security checklist for cloud models]
Every Walz application that's running on FlexPod has a template associated with it, Falzarano says. These templates are checked into an "environments catalog", and are centrally managed by cloud management software. Using the software and the templates within an environment catalog, the IT team at Walz can maintain business continuity effectively, Falzarano says.
用于这些环境中的资源（例如，CPU，存储器，存储装置，带宽）的消耗经由仪表盘显示，警报和报告度量，和详细的趋势，如每天，每周，每月，每季度消费与规划有助于确定和配置的需要的业务连续性和灾难恢复方面的能力。
通过云管理工具瓦尔兹可以向外扩展其他应用程序设置定义的策略，这使得它能够通过更加自动化，按需调配型的保持业务的连续性，Falzarano说。
该软件还允许瓦尔兹以提供其私有云或服务提供商的私有云。例如，如果瓦尔兹使用内部私有云的80％，突然看到了一个新的应用需求，并希望迅速旋转起来开发系统，它可以选择提供这些开发系统到服务提供商的私有云，而不是供应系统在其私有云剩下的20％，因此，它可以保持一定的增长预约。相同类型的模型也可以用于业务连续性，Falzarano说。
Imperial Sugar operates ahybrid cloud environment，约95及其应用的％在其数据中心的私有云和通过软件作为服务（SaaS）模式访问其余运行。2020欧洲杯预赛私有云是由网络服务提供商提供和SaaS的软件由软件供应商托管的基础上提供，穆勒说。
Because the cloud environment is maintained by service providers and software vendors, the onus falls on them to ensure continuity, and that can be a benefit as well as a risk, Muller says.
"When I have a third party hosting the environment for me I look to them as part of the service-level agreement to have the resources--the people and hardware and infrastructure in place--so that they can guarantee me if the hardware has a problem at one location they've got another location that will bring up my apps in a manner that is seamless to our internal users," Muller says. "That's sort of their problem, as long as I've got a strong service-level agreement in place with them."
在另一方面，即使有服务级别协议持服务提供商负责，不能保证该服务不会在某一时刻被打断，穆勒说。
Not everyone sees cloud computing as influencing business continuity. "As of today, I don't see a huge impact," Dines says. "However, I do expect this to become a significant complicating factor in the future. As more organizations outsource more services to the cloud, it will become the job of the business continuity manager to audit the recovery plans of many different suppliers."
In addition, Dines says, during a failure or testing, recovery will need to be coordinated across many different sites run by different vendors. "Longer-term, cloud will make business continuity much more complicated," she says.
在劳动力移动设备
The proliferation of mobile devices in the workforce is a benefit for business continuity strategies because it gives more flexibility for workforce recovery options, Dines says.
"As compared to the days when employees only had desktops and laptops, the ability to remain productive without access to a computer via tablets and smartphones is a significant advantage," she says. "Additionally, it means that employees should be easier to communicate with during a disaster."
[也可查看Mobile device management: Part of the security solution？]
业务连续性规划软件供应商正在把更多的重点放在确保在需要实现业务连续性软件和信息可以通过移动设备访问，Morency说。这包括信息，如恢复的当前状态，以哪些员工应该去的位置，哪些应用程序和服务，他们可以访问，并在那里他们连接到获取最新的紧急更新。
"This is not only for telecommuters but for the workforce in general and the mobile sales folks who need ways to access the information that is most relevant to them, and be able to access this through the device of their choice," Morency says.
Enterprises "cannot depend on corporate headquarters or the data center always being available following a disruptive event," Morency says. "They have to ensure that critical plan content is always available [including to mobile users] regardless of what happened."
许多帝国糖业员工使用智能手机，平板电脑和其他设备的工作，穆勒说，这些设备可能会被证明从业务连续性角度来看有用的，因为工人将能够利用它们来进行商业交易，并与同事和客户的沟通多个远程位置。
问题的关键是确保这些设备继续获得软件和服务，让他们的功能最佳的应用，如邮件和协作。“如果我有一个黑莓企业服务器我只需要确保它的东西，我可以在远程业务连续性或灾难恢复站点，弹出”如果需要的话，穆勒说。
The proliferation of mobile devices makes it easier for people to stay connected, "and certainly makes it easier to connect in a business recovery situation," Muller says. "A wireless PC can do the same thing, but a mobile device is smaller and easier to carry around and it costs less. You can do just about anything on a mobile device that you can do on a PC."
社交网络
发表于2011年7月根据Forrester的报告，题为“是时候为包括社交技术在你的危机传播策略”指出，虽然许多风险专家订阅了可靠的质量的通知“，广泛采用的移动设备，方便上网的自动化通信服务支持的情况下，使用社交技术，如推特，脸谱，和Skype作为应对计划的重要组成部分“。
随着企业寻求快速，有效的沟通与关键利益相关者方法crisis communications，他们应该认真考虑利用社交技术，该报告说。
另据悉，“业务连续性管理中使用社交媒体的做与不该做，” Gartner公司在2012年1月发布，指出，社交媒体“持有转化为企业的业务连续性管理，特别是危机/突发事件管理和沟通方式的承诺“。
Social media is used by more than 80% of the world's population, Gartner says, and enterprises can't afford to ignore it as a crisis communications tool. But effective use of a new communications channel requires planning and practice, and attempting to leverage social media for the first time during a crisis can cause more harm than good, the firm says.
Among the key recommended steps are to determine which social platforms are already used by employees, customers and other stakeholders and use those platforms in crisis/incident management efforts; and use social media not only to communicate during a disaster, but to gather information and gain the support of outside resources that can help ensure ongoing business resilience. Business continuity management professionals should immediately begin assessing social media's opportunities--and risks, the Gartner reports says.
"Social networks are both a blessing and a curse" for business continuity, Dines says. "They have the benefit of being an additional communication channel to get in touch with employees during a [business disruption]. However, they can be a headache for crisis communications and PR as they try to control potential damages to reputation and the propagation of rumors."
This story, "4 critical trends in IT business continuity" was originally published byCSO .