Abstract
Banking has for all time been a huge user of disaster recover systems. Disaster recovery is as much an issue about people as about IT. Businesses have to make sure the money they give over to unforeseen event planning is lucrative. Data is increasingly being replicated across different continents. Drivers of disaster recovery adoption include mobile working trends and regulatory considerations. The financial services industry is as critical to every nation’s infrastructure as its systems of government, justice, education and health. In recognition of this, late last year, UKHome Office minister Hazel Blears told financial services leaders: “It’s important that you devote more resources to business continuity so you can fulfill your responsibility not just to your business, but also to keeping your staff safe.” Financial services has always been a big user of business continuity and disaster recovery plans but the terrorist attacks of 11September 2001 caused the industry worldwide to take a hypercritical look at these plans. This trend continues to be driven by the rise of mobile working and the increasing demand for regulatory compliance. Indeed, the latter has placed disaster recovery well and truly on the boardroom table.
However, no business can ensure 100 percent certainty in a volatile world. Banks have to ensure that whatever resources they devote to disaster recovery, their competitiveness is not damaged in the process. Banks were among the earliest adopters of information technology in the business world. They embraced the benefits of computers almost from the birth of the high-tech industry. Concurrent with the industry's increased reliance on technology has been the birth and evolution of another industry the disaster recovery industry. Seven Philadelphia-based banks in the mid-1970s formed the Automated Clearinghouse Association for the sole purpose of confronting the issue of how banks should manage data recovery if.......
