Business continuity is an organization's capability to maintain mission-critical functionality during and after a disaster. There are myriad disruptions that can cost organizations time, money and productivity, and business continuity planning helps them prepare for these risks before they happen. Modern organizations have a list of potential disruptions that extend beyond natural disasters. Service outages, security breaches and industry competition can represent significant threats to business process.
Business continuity allows organizations to:
In the past, organizations would rely on a complex series of physical provisions to maintain operations during disaster scenarios. From an information technology perspective, stakeholders would need to arrange for endpoints such as new desktop computers and networking technologies to maintain a patchwork of systems until normal operation could resume.
Today, cloud technologies, redundant systems and strategic planning keep businesses running when the unexpected occurs. Business continuity management has become markedly easier in the 21st century, and building a solid business continuity program isn’t the imposing challenge it once was. Large organizations may be able to keep all of their functionality throughout a crisis. Small or mid-size companies may focus on keeping critical functions active until the crisis passes.
But even in this connected age, risk assessment, risk management and disaster recovery planning remain critical for ensuring enterprise continuity.
With Citrix your business keeps running during unplanned downtime.
If people can’t access the applications, data, files and services their work depends on, then the business is still down—and losing money, customers, productivity, reputation and opportunities every moment it takes to get them back to work.
Integrated technologies supported by cloud platforms give modern businesses the ability to plan for, react to and recover from crises, whether they be natural disasters, cyber attacks or supplier failures. These technologies support full critical business functions and crisis management amid potential threats, and run accurate business impact analyses:
Hosted desktops and applications
Virtual apps and desktops as well as SaaS and web apps are ideal for business continuity as they allow users to access their applications using any device in the event a disaster renders company data centers and offices useless. This remote access helps ensure the business continuity process.
Unified endpoint management
In the event of a disaster, employees should have the ability to access their apps and files from any location using any device. Unified endpoint management allow organizations to securely deliver apps and data to employees regardless of the endpoint, network, or the user’s location.
File sync and share
In a disaster, the availability of critical files is essential to continued operations. Cloud-based file sync and share tools give stakeholders the power to access company data from anywhere on earth. Furthermore, policy-based control options and sophisticated security protocols mitigate the risk of data loss or corruption, ensuring information remains in an untarnished state throughout the disaster. In the event of a serious breach, encryption tools and remote wipe options keep sensitive information safe from malicious actors.
Collaboration
Keeping teams connected throughout crises is critical to resiliency and recovery goals, and plays a key role in any robust business continuity strategy.
Optimized contingency plans leverage collaboration tools to shift workloads to teams outside of the disaster zone. Importantly, collaboration tools utilize cloud technology to provide near instant access to critical functions to authorized stakeholders, as dictated by the contingency plan.
Cloud networking
In normal situations, cloud networks give organizations the ability to expand their resources as needs spike. In the event that a disaster strikes the primary data center, disaster solutions can spread virtualized resources across secondary locations, limiting downtime or eliminating service outages completely. These solutions provide reliability and performance throughout the disaster, giving stakeholders the time necessary to maintain business operations.
In a competitive business environment, disruption can cost organizations significantly. Emergency management tests the mettle of even the most prepared organizations. To ensure teams can stay productive and IT stakeholders can meet recovery time objectives, leaders need to make strategic investments in resilient technologies. Supporting these tools, policies, recovery strategies and standardized continuity activities empower stakeholders to maintain control and support data backup in even the worst disaster scenarios.
At its core, a business continuity plan is a strong framework to support an organization when the unexpected occurs. By predicting potential crises and identifying mission critical functions, organizations increase their opportunities for overcoming monumental challenges with ease. A systematic approach ensures everyone understands their roles and has the greatest chance of success.
The three pillars of resilience, recovery and contingency reinforce organizations, giving them the ability to support internal teams as well as external stakeholders. With Citrix Cloud and the aid of cloud technologies and dynamic infrastructures, the most dangerous crises become manageable.