automated network management systems

The aim of this chapter is to discuss the special requirements of automated network management systems
and to present a detailed discussion of specific storage technologies and solutions. The strategies and solutions described should help in the understanding and implementation of the requirements for storage technologies that exist in a large-scale business continuity plan. During the discussion we will be referring to basic technologies and solutions that have already been explained in previous chapters.

We start this chapter by motivating the background reasons and the necessity for continuous and loss-free business operations. In so doing we identify some of the risks that can affect IT operations and, by extension, a company's continuous business processes. We use risk management to determine the steps needed to create a business continuity plan. We then explain the different strategies of business continuity and introduce parameters for the purpose of comparing these strategies. Using this as a basis, we discuss a seven-tier model for business continuity that is useful in analyzing the economics of different business continuity solutions. We end the chapter by presenting some selected technical solutions and positioning them within the seven-tier model.