Disaster Recovery

Because information technology is now integrated in most businesses, a business continuity plan (BCP) cannot be complete without a corresponding disaster recovery plan (DRP). While a BCP encompasses everything needed – personnel, facilities, communications, processes and IT infrastructure – for a continuous delivery of products and services, a DRP is more focused on the IT aspects of the plan.

If you’re still not sure how big an impact loss of data can have, it’s time you pondered on the survival statistics of companies that incurred data losses after getting hit by a major disaster: 46% never recovered and 51% eventually folded after only two years.

Realising how damaging data loss can be to their entire business, most large enterprises allocate no less than 2% of their IT budget to disaster recovery planning. Those with more sensitive data apportion twice more than that.

A sound disaster recovery plan is hinged on the principles of business continuity. As such, our DRP (Disaster Recovery Plan) blueprints are aimed at getting your IT system up and running in no time. Here’s what we can do for you:

  • Since the number one turn-off against BCPs and DRPs are their price tags, we’ll make a thorough and realistic assessment of possible risks to determine what specific methods need to be applied to your organisation and make sure you don’t spend more than you should.
  • Provide an option for virtualisation to enjoy substantial savings on disaster recovery costs.
  • Provide various backup options and suggest schedules and practices most suitable for your daily transactions.
  • Offer data replication to help you achieve business continuity with the shortest allowable downtime.
  • Refer to your overall BCP to determine your organisation’s critical functions, services, and products as well as their respective priority rankings to know what corresponding IT processes need to be in place first.
  • Implement IT Security to your system to reduce the risks associated with malware and hackers.
  • Introduce best practices to make future disaster recovery efforts as seamless as possible.

We can also assist you with the following:

Check our similar posts

Convert visits to sales to repeat purchases

The moment you start seeing more than a thousand unique visitors in just one day, we won’t be surprised if you’d be grinning ear to ear the entire week. But when weeks turn into months, you’ll then remember why you started off on this venture in the first place … and it wasn’t about just owning an immensely popular website.

People, like you, who’ve chosen to invest in eCommerce were most likely thinking along the lines of great ROI, revenues, and profits. Now that you have thousands of visitors, how would you like to have, say for a start, 1% of them buying the products on your site?

You know more about your own product prices; you do the math. But what might really interest you is that a slight change in that 1% conversion rate can already spell a big difference in your profits. Now imagine bringing that 1% up to at least 10%. That’s possible, but not if you simply rely on guesswork.

We rely on tests applicable to complex multi-variable systems, just like today’s typical eCommerce websites, in determining which combination of copy text, landing page images, form layouts, and background colours generate higher conversion rates.

Here’s how we’ll convert your visitors into buyers:

  • We’ll conduct A/B or even multivariate tests on your eCommerce website, thus eliminating guesswork in determining how to increase those conversion rates.
  • We’ll perform on-site and off-site web analytics to gain a deeper understanding of web usage to aid in our optimisation operations.
  • Through our expertise in copywriting, graphics and web designing, UI designing, and website QA, we can enhance and fine tune your site to give each visitor a uniquely engaging browsing experience.
  • We can also integrate CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems so that you’ll have the technical advantage to turn one-time buyers into repeat customers.
Are Master Data Management and Hadoop a Good Match?

Master Data is the critical electronic information about the company we cannot afford to lose. Accordingly, we should sanitise it, look after it, and store it safely in several separate places that are independent of each other. The advent of Big Data introduced the current era of huge repositories ?in the clouds?. They are not, of course but at least they are remote. This short article includes a discussion about Hadoop, and whether this is a good platform to back up your Master Data.

About Hadoop

Hadoop is an open-source Apache software framework built on the assumption that hardware failure is so common that backups are unavoidable. It comprises a storage area and a management part that distributes the data to smaller nodes where it processes faster and more efficiently. Prominent users include Yahoo! and Facebook. In fact more than half Fortune 50 companies were using Hadoop in 2013.

Hadoop – initially launched in December 2011 ? has survived its baptism of fire and became a respected, reliable option. But is this something the average business owner can tackle on their own? Bear in mind that open source software generally comes with little implementation support from the vendor.

The Hadoop Strong Suite

  • Free to download, use and contribute to
  • Everything you need ?in the box? to get started
  • Distributed across multiple fire-walled computers
  • Fast processing of data held in efficient cluster nodes
  • Massive scaleable storage you are unlikely to run out of

Practical Constraints

There is more to Hadoop than writing to WordPress. The most straightforward solutions are uploading using Java commands, obtaining an interface mechanism, or using third party vendor connectors such as ACCESS or SAS. The system does not replace the need for IT support, although it is cheap and exceptionally powerful.

The Not-Free Safer Option

Smaller companies without in-depth in-house support are wise to engage with a technical intermediary. There are companies providing commercial implementations followed by support. Microsoft, Amazon and Google among others all have commercial versions in their catalogues, and support teams at the end of the line.

Disadvantages of Spreadsheets

Spreadsheets are flexible, inexpensive and easy to use. They are especially handy when it comes to beating report submission deadlines or making impromptu data computations. That’s why office workers, managers and even executives have made spreadsheets their go-to solution for such undertakings and more.

Spreadsheets have become so ubiquitous, that they’ve found their way into a wide range of applications including complex modelling, accounting reconciliations, market data analysis, work flow tracking and monitoring, analytical review and financial reporting.

Unfortunately, organisations heavy reliance on spreadsheets have made these User Developed Applications (UDA) into high-risk office tools. Simple spreadsheet errors like leaving out a negative sign or a cut-and-paste mistake have already caused million-dollar discrepancies. Also, when a fraudulent employee enters into the picture, the risks become unimaginable.

Think TransAlta?s spreadsheet cut-and-paste glitch (the company later called this a ?simple clerical error?) which caused the energy firm a whopping $24 million loss or Fidelity?s overstatement of its earnings owing to the omission of the minus sign on the spreadsheet of a $1.3 billion net capital loss.

In both cases and in many other similar spreadsheet fiasco, the errors played a major role in the organisation’s decision-making, leading to disastrous results including, but not limited to financial loss, shattered investor confidence and public embarrassment.

If these are scenarios your organisation can ill afford, then it’s time to ask yourself: Do the disadvantages of spreadsheets far outweigh their benefits to merit a call for total liberation from them?

More Spreadsheet Blogs


Spreadsheet Risks in Banks


Top 10 Disadvantages of Spreadsheets


Disadvantages of Spreadsheets – obstacles to compliance in the Healthcare Industry


How Internal Auditors can win the War against Spreadsheet Fraud


Spreadsheet Reporting – No Room in your company in an age of Business Intelligence


Still looking for a Way to Consolidate Excel Spreadsheets?


Disadvantages of Spreadsheets


Spreadsheet woes – ill equipped for an Agile Business Environment


Spreadsheet Fraud


Spreadsheet Woes – Limited features for easy adoption of a control framework


Spreadsheet woes – Burden in SOX Compliance and other Regulations


Spreadsheet Risk Issues


Server Application Solutions – Don’t let Spreadsheets hold your Business back


Why Spreadsheets can send the pillars of Solvency II crashing down

?

Advert-Book-UK

amazon.co.uk

?

Advert-Book-USA

amazon.com

Contact Us

  • (+353)(0)1-443-3807 – IRL
  • (+44)(0)20-7193-9751 – UK

Ready to work with Denizon?

Contact Us Today