When Times are Tough, There's
No Room for Risk
Don't Stop fortifying against risk Every business deals with risk. But medium-sized businesses, with smaller IT staff and tighter operating budgets are often more exposed to risk than larger companies. This reality is never more evident than in a down economy: When the repercussions of a business disruption are as grave as they are, how do you insulate your business from risk? "For mid-sized businesses, the financial impact of business disruptions is tremendous," said Anil Miglani, senior vice president, AMI-Partners. "We estimate that through security breaches and data loss alone, medium-sized businesses worldwide lost approximately US$4.7 billion in 2008." According to strategy consulting firm AMI-Partners, in 2008 medium-sized businesses worldwide lost approximately US$4.7 billion due to security breaches and loss of data. However, taking the right precautions with your IT infrastructure can help you steer clear of danger. Here are four steps you can take to mitigate risks to your revenue, your reputation, and your investment - all the things that keep you awake at night as you wait for this storm to pass.
1. Reduce the probability of downtime High availability of critical systems is the medium-sized business's highest IT priority, and it's attainable with a few key changes:
►Invest
in reliable servers. Look for servers that have been
extensively tested and certified to run on the latest
operating systems. Couple that with a comprehensive set of
server management tools.
2. Protect your data
►Replicate
and use deduplication. Look for a storage backup
solution that lets you cost-effectively replicate data for
quick recovery. Deduplication
helps ensure that you don't waste bandwidth, disk space and
effort backing up multiple copies of the same data.
3. Secure the network
4. Reduce disruptive changes
►Automate
routine server and PC management. Management software
can minimize complexity and lower risks of downtime. As for
PCs, it can accelerate installations and deployments of
software and operating systems.
How HP can help
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