IT Continuity

Keeping IT systems up and running and protecting them from the many threats every business now faces is a key challenge.
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What is IT continuity?

Whether caused by cyber attack, power outage, human error, fire, flood or pandemic, business disruptions are costing the global business community dearly in downtime and catastrophic data loss. The magnitude of such damaging events can be minimised if you have robust IT continuity plans in place, which have been tested and communicated across your organisation. Conversely, a substandard plan could leave you and your users vulnerable. Productivity and brand reputation may be damaged, and you could face a huge fine under GDPR legislation.

Covid-19 and major cyber attacks, such as the Colonial Pipeline ransomware hack, have focused business leaders’ attention on IT continuity. And understandably so. When did you last strengthen your IT systems, applications and data files, to help them stand up to significant business disruption?

IT continuity extends to disaster recovery (DR) responsibilities including application, system and data backup and recovery, servers, data, systems, and access. Beyond data and systems recovery, IT continuity can also apply to the proactive implementation of information technology for a seamless, remote-accessed system – commonly using cloud backups and Office 365.

Contact Boldfield to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of your current IT continuity plan and find out how to boost its resilience.

 

The role of IT continuity audits and plans

We recommend that your IT continuity plan is robust and routinely reviewed. IT audits will help your team keep pace with rising IT risks and uncertainties, and they will highlight weaknesses in your critical business applications and systems.

Boldfield audits existing plans and runs IT risk assessments for its clients. Our expert team can offer advice on how best to mitigate IT risk, to safeguard your productivity and operational systems, while retaining customer trust.

A robust information technology service continuity plan should cover the standards, policies, procedures and tools that provide IT resilience in the event of a major disruption. For example, in the event of a server failure your likely response would be to recover the server, investigate how the failure happened, and finally mitigate the risk by investing in new equipment and/or expertise.

Boldfield is experienced in response, recovery and mitigation planning, and can help you devise a bespoke IT continuity plan for your business. With a robust plan in place, your attention should turn to auditing that plan.

IT audits help businesses define how best to improve their response to a systems failure, cyber attack or natural disaster, and where best to invest for future resilience. IT risk assessments by Boldfield will focus on the most valuable IT assets processed by your servers, such as, customer payment details/credentials, personal employee data and sensitive commercial information.

What are the benefits of having an IT continuity plan?

IT continuity is the backbone of modern business. Without resilient systems and IT continuity, key assets including business data, telecoms and storage could be disabled. In the event of a cyber attack or natural disaster, many businesses would be damaged and potentially risk failure.

Productivity and sales are protected

IT continuity helps employees continue to work productively and securely. Users can access systems and customers can continue to spend money with you. Downtime will be significantly minimised.

Boosting confidence in your business

Continuity in the event of a major event gives customers confidence in your business and its management team. Prove yourself to be a safe pair of hands with customer data, credentials and employees’ jobs, and people are more likely to do business with you.

Agility and flexibility to work anywhere, anytime

IT continuity plans can help businesses carry on trading seamlessly. Often included are measures such as data recovery, remote access, Cloud backups and Office 365, which mitigate against disruption. Many businesses activated their IT continuity plans during the Covid-19 pandemic, when work-from-home orders were imposed.

Damage limitation and cost saving

With an IT continuity plan in place, stolen or damaged data can be recovered and reinstated. Operations can resume before operations grind to a halt and customer trust is lost.

Feeling concerned and want to arrange an immediate IT risk assessment? Contact our expert team today

Considering Anti-Virus & Anti-Spam as part of your IT continuity plan

Anti-Virus and Anti-Spam solutions are designed to minimise attacks on your desktop systems, servers and email exchanges. They are designed to help stop malware, which could potentially damage your entire network

With Boldfield’s support, your business can be better protected with full-coverage leading anti-virus/anti-malware solutions for PC, MAC and servers. We are partners with a select group of anti-virus/anti-malware vendors, and we offer Cloud-based email anti-spam/anti-virus, which is designed to help protect remote users and assets.

Relax, safe in the knowledge that our expert team has checked and installed every anti-virus/anti-spam update you own

Trusted providers of peace of mind

Business leaders are urged to invest in disaster recovery and business continuity provision as a top priority. The risk of cyber attack is growing, while the Covid-19 pandemic exposed failings for many organisations in remote IT provision, knowledge and user support.

Increasing your organisation’s IT resilience starts with a bespoke combination of cloud-based applications, monitoring and fast replacement or backup/replacement hardware. Recommended measures include cloud-based server hosting and backup, cloud email exchanges, alternative data backup solutions, disk mirroring and dual power supplies.

Boldfield’s trusted, holistic approach to IT disaster management starts with a robust, frequently audited, continuity/disaster recovery plan. Using our IT continuity and risk assessment expertise, our team can cut through any organisational resistance, complexity and delay.

Our disaster recovery experts are available to help you manage (and plan for) the restoration of data, servers, files, software applications, and operating systems following a major event. Third party disaster recovery suites can also be arranged if your office space suffers serious damage.

Frequently asked IT continuity questions

What is the role of IT continuity in disaster recovery?

IT disaster recovery refers to the IT systems that support critical business functions. IT continuity is critical during disaster recovery, and is the process by which data and services are restored and business systems and applications get back online. Contact us for advice on the creation and auditing of your information technology disaster recovery plan (IT DRP).

What are the ISO accreditations for IT continuity?

ISO accreditations for IT include ISO 27001, 27017 (cloud-based environments) and 27018 (personal data in the cloud), which are control frameworks covering information security policies; the organisation of information security; asset management and control; and cryptography.

What is IT continuity testing?

IT continuity testing is a stress test of your organisation’s disaster plan and backup systems. It also trials the likelihood of recovery within your recovery time objective (RTO). Simulations (involving most/all of your employees), penetration testing, desktop scenarios and walkthrough exercises can be used to test your IT continuity plans.

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