Corporations would never consider operating without adequate insurance to recover their physical assets, to cover their executives, or liability insurance. What about THE key corporate asset – Data? The objective of a storage solution is to maintain a steady state of business continuity in the event of an unexpected event that disrupts that steady state.

A recent IDC report cited the primary concern for storage managers are anti-disaster measures such as prevention and remedial actions. Anti-disaster measures rated highest of a series of concerns (3.71 out of a possible 5), while backup efficiency rated 3.44, and improvements in system reliability rated 3.32

1. Definition

A disaster is defined as a "sudden or great misfortune" or simply "any unfortunate event." More precisely, a disaster is "an event whose timing is unexpected and whose consequences are seriously destructive." These definitions identify an event that includes three elements:

However, a fourth element, lack of foresight or planning, is sometimes added. Disasters occur with unnerving frequency and their adverse consequences increase for those who do not prepare for predictable contingencies.

2. Various Types of Disasters

Disasters are not restricted to information resources and physical assets. The death of an essential employee, a product poisoning, a plant explosion, a fire in a central distribution center, or a chemical spill are disasters that adversely affect organizations.

3. Cost of Failure

Unplanned IT failures have tremendous costs associated with them:

Lost productivity, idle employees

A report by Contingency Planning Research addressing the financial impact of application outages shows that outage costs can vary considerably by industry and application. The bottom line is, any outage can have a significant negative impact on your business.