This white paper shares the best practices for company data security used by some of today's most progressive IT leaders to help align their group's efforts with company goals and to make their data protection activities more successful.
Tools for Change A five-step framework to align IT with business goals
Table of Contents Table of Contents ...................................................................................................................................................... 2 Tables and Figures.................................................................................................................................................... 2 Retooling Your IT Image: Are You Running Defense or Offense?............................................................................ 1 Data Protection Visibility: IT's 'Secret Weapon' to Reconnect with Business Needs................................................ 2 CMM, SLM and SLAs: Connecting Data Protection Efforts to Larger IT Initiatives .................................................. 3 Closing the Gap: The Five-Step Framework to Realign IT with the Business .......................................................... 5 Step 1. Assess State of Service Delivery .................................................................................................................. 6 Step 2. Establish and Communicate Service Level Criteria...................................................................................... 8 Step 3. Identify Areas for Improvement..................................................................................................................... 9 Step 4. Remedy Performance Gaps........................................................................................................................ 10 Step 5. Validate Performance.................................................................................................................................. 11 Beyond Step 5. Iteration Towards a Mature IT Model............................................................................................. 11 Conclusion............................................................................................................................................................... 12 About Bocada .......................................................................................................................................................... 13 Tables and Figures Table 1. Backup/Restore Maturity Levels.................................................................................................................. 3 Figure 1. The Bocada Five-Step Framework to Realign IT with Business Needs .................................................... 6 Figure 2. Expected Implementation Timelines and Performance Gains................................................................. 12
Retooling Your IT Image: Are You Running Defense or Offense? Availability. Performance. Rapid recovery from unplanned outages. According to surveys of customer 1satisfaction, the success of an IT organization at accomplishing these three goals directly impacts how favorably IT is perceived by a company's executives and leadership. The truth is, no CIO wants the spotlight on his or her IT group's operations only when critical company data goes missing. Likewise, no IT management team wants to explain to the rest of the organization why a data restore exercise failed or took significantly longer than anticipated.
Common Defensive Maneuvers Today, many IT managers are plagued relentlessly by complex issues that keep them and their organizations in constant fire fighting mode. They often find themselves using precious staff resources to correct ongoing availability or restore problems that are highly visible to the organization, yet relatively unimportant in the larger scheme of managing IT systems. In the face of exponential data growth, IT outsourcing, server consolidation, flattened IT budgets, and company reorganizations, IT managers and their staff often seem to be put on the defense, with most under the gun to simply ensure basic services delivery. In response to a recent study by UK analyst firm CSC that showed only 7 percent of companies questioned 2claimed to have a technology plan properly aligned with their corporate strategy , Meta Group analyst Brian Burke said he was not surprised. "Many IT management groups are simply victims. They allow themselves to be man... [download for more]
