Business continuity safeguarding your business for the future

WHILE YOUR CUSTOMERS might empathise with your situation initially, whether it is the result of natural causes or a security breach, the ultimate concern to your customer is how this will impact their business. Whatever the threat, natural or manmade, all organisations should have a plan in place to implement the restoration of customer facing services first and foremost, in order to prevent long term damage to the business.

Given the huge amounts of data organisations are now producing, it is becoming more important to ensure this data is stored securely and correctly. Organisations need to be able to access this information as and when, remotely, without compromising security. As more and more companies turn to the cloud to store data, it is important to highlight that in today’s complex and always-connected world, hackers are progressively exploiting more entry points to inflict damages to companies and individuals.

The Cloud is creating some of these additional entry points. More and more entry points mean organisations must implement a robust security policy and reliable disaster recovery plan to protect the ever so valuable information they create. While there are additional security threats to consider when using the Cloud, the same was true when we first started using cars, airplanes and the internet. We thought that was worth the risk and adapted our systems to account for and tackle previously unknown security threats.

It is also apparent that one of the most obvious challenges to data security is the rise of the mobile workforce. For example, IDC has predicted that over 37% of the global workforce would be mobile by 2015, a rise of 300m people since 2010. With 1 in 4 notebooks sold globally being ultra-slim and ultra-portable by 2015, we can expect the impact of the lives of individuals, but companies, and their security policies.

The impact is particularly significant in the way teams are created, operate, interact and where they are located. Geography is no longer a barrier to innovation and collaboration but it is a huge challenge to protecting an organisation’s data.

As companies awaken to the severity of the consequences of not planning for the future in terms of both data centre disaster recovery and security, this year’s Data Centre EXPO will feature seminars and other activities where examples of best practice and the latest technologies will be showcased. From keynotes by Ian Cox, Axin on the disruption of IT to seminars from Dave Packer, Druva on avoiding the data risks of the anywhere enterprise, join us at Data Centre EXPO this October.
Data Centre EXPO preview
Data Centre EXPO, held on the 8 – 9 October 2014, will be co-located alongside IP EXPO Europe – the leading cloud and IT infrastructure event. Join us to discuss the biggest issues businesses are facing today, from Dell, HP, NetApp and Memset, discussing converged infrastructure solutions and sustainable data centre management to the future of the G-Cloud framework.

Other speakers will include Tim Smith, Box Consulting who will offer insight into how to capitalise on the convergence of mobile, social and cloud in the enterprise and Mark Russinovich, Azure who will describe public cloud hoster and customer threat models, as well touch on other security best practices. Key events to watch out for include the Big Data Evolution Summit, SDN Conference and Oktoberfest. Register now for the show at www.ipexpo.co.uk and keep up with the latest news and developments by following @IPEXPO on Twitter and the tag #IPEXPOEurope.
www.ipexpo.co.uk