Digital transformation is a non-negotiable for companies wanting to succeed. Increased connectivity means increased risk. But if you want to outlast, outthink and outplay the opposition, you have no choice. That was the overriding message to come out of the VeeamON Forum event held in Johannesburg in August.
Claude Schuck, regional manager for Africa, Veeam, underlines the importance of having an effective backup and disaster recovery plan in place by citing the example of the UK's Heathrow Airport's massive IT meltdown in May this year that resulted in thousands of people being stranded as hundreds of British Airways flights were cancelled. The problem affected BA's call centre, its Web site and its mobile app. Schuck says: "While the shutdown cost an estimated $100 million, the reputational damage caused is inestimable."
Schuck says: "The lesson is clear: if something like this can happen to an international airport, it can happen to any other business out there. So best they be prepared for the worst eventuality."
Veeam's vice president, MEA, Gregg Petersen, agrees. He says: "We're looking at a digital future where we need to seriously consider the cost of downtime. Think about some of the most successful businesses today; Airbnb doesn't own a single hotel, Uber doesn't own a single car, yet they dominate the accommodation and public transport industries, respectively. Their entire business model is digital. The most important thing for their business model is user confidence and business continuity."
A digital business has to offer a personalised service, instantaneously, and it has to be up and running 24/7/365. If the response time is slow, people will just move away and click elsewhere. That's human nature, they want instant gratification and they want it now.
Petersen continues: "Data is the new oil, businesses are moving away from things towards becoming data- and software-driven. Everything is becoming automated, and this ever-evolving business model makes it difficult to predict data growth. It's estimated that there'll be 180 zetabytes of data by 2025, I think we'll far exceed this. So when planning backup and disaster recovery strategies, businesses need to be wary of capacity-based licence models. Businesses need to be instantly available and to recover instantly should something go wrong. Rapid backup and recovery of critical virtualised systems is non-negotiable for survival."
The trend is moving towards everything as a service in the hybrid cloud. But going beyond that, businesses need to be able to simulate and plan what they'll do if the worst happens, a disaster recovery roadmap, if you will.
Trent Odgers, enterprise account manager at Veeam, says: "The cloud is rewriting the rules, but businesses can't just jump straight into the cloud, planning is required. Wherever there's value and opportunity, there's also risk, and companies need to be cognisant of this."
Odgers describes it as Cloud 101. "You need to understand your business's requirements, decide how much cloud infrastructure you need to meet those requirements, then you need the necessary connectivity, as well as visibility and control over your data. And you need to consider where (or if) your legacy infrastructure fits into all of this."
Businesses need to be able to keep pace with a rapidly changing world and manage the ever-increasing amount of data that it generates. However, says Odgers, it's no longer sufficient just to store that data, you also need to manage and analyse it so that it becomes meaningful. "The ability to use your backup data to thoroughly test a patch or update before applying it across the business could help you avoid unnecessary downtime," he explains. "This ensures maximum availability for the business. There's no longer any need to have downtime in order to troubleshoot - or to lose valuable data in the process."
Businesses need 24/7 access to data and apps, with a leading South African bank as a good case in point. It recently shut down its Web site and mobile app on a Sunday night to perform maintenance, which in this day and age, isn't necessary. Customers were frustrated, they couldn't make payments or access their online banking information, and made their unhappiness known on social media. Again, the reputational damage is inestimable.
Odgers says: "No data means no business. It's that simple. And who can afford not to be doing business?"
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