In todays communications-dependent business world, disaster may come in the guise of an act of God, or an act of war. It may also come in the form of such unremarkable events as ISP problems, server outages, systems changes, network glitches, or routine upgrades. With a little bad luck, any one of these can trigger a single point of failure for a major problem.

Increasingly, companies are looking for a more proactive approach to disaster management than traditional disaster recovery can provide. Its time, as Rick Devenuti suggests in his foreword, to change our thinking about preparedness. Disaster-Proofing Information Systems:

* Provides a methodology for underwriting business continuity through end-to-end availability and resource distribution

* Takes a close look at best practices and available products and tools for colocated, fault-tolerant systems

* Illustrates how all components of a disaster avoidance implementation can carry their own weight on a daily basis, unlike traditional disaster recovery cost allocations

END-TO-END DISASTER MANAGEMENT FOR YOUR:

* databases

* applications

* servers

* infrastructure

* Internet links

* workstations

* remote users

* personnel

* facilities

This book utilitizes [todays new system capabilities] through a method called SHARED that integrates high availability with disaster avoidance to provide systems that are highly redundant and tolerant of disaster in whatever form it occurs. It will help you chart a course toward systems that avoid the need for disaster recovery...and provide other operational benefits in the areas of performance, reliability, and maintainability. -- Richard R. Devenuti, CIO, Microsoft Corporation

Contents          

   PART I: A SHARED METHODOLOGY FOR DISASTER AVOIDANCE ACROSS ENTERPRISE, B2B AND B2C SYSTEMS
    Chapter 1: Avoidance Versus Recovery
    Chapter 2: Business Continuity Requirements
    Chapter 3: Developing a Disaster Avoidance Strategy
    Chapter 4: Integrating Business Continuity and Disaster Avoidance Needs
   PART II: IMPLEMENTING THE SHARED ARCHITECTURE
    Chapter 5: Access Devices
    Chapter 6: Platforms
    Chapter 7: Applications
    Chapter 8: Data Store
    Chapter 9: Infrastructure
    Chapter 10: B2B, B2C, B2G, and Small Business Needs
    Chapter 11: Validation and Testing
     Index