Beyond Disaster Recovery: Intelligent Automation and Business Continuity

But other types of events, such as human errors, application errors, and delays in reacting to changing conditions in the mainframe environment can also disastrously disrupt business continuity. Human errors can wipe out critical data. Application errors can stuff erroneous data into business-critical databases. A delay in responding to a change, such as a spike in workload, can drag down the performance of a business-critical application. According to leading industry analysts, as much as 80 percent of all unplanned downtime is caused by software problems or human error. Companies must be prepared to deal with these types of events.

THE DRIVING FACTORS WHICH COULD CAUSE THE DISASTER

Gone are the days when the mainframe was monolithic, walled off from the outside world and accessed only by a small number of skilled IT personnel. Today, the mainframe is a vital and tightly integrated resource in the enterprise IT infrastructure. As part of a complex, multitiered, services-oriented architecture, the mainframe must interoperate with a variety of other resources. For example, a single SAP landscape can include mainframes, multiple servers and hundreds or thousands of database tables.

Additionally, the mainframe must meet today's demand for 24/7 operation. Maintenance windows have virtually disappeared, forcing operations staff to perform maintenance tasks—such as deploying bug fixes, and upgrading and adding new applications—while the system is operational or in the very limited downtime window for those tasks that cannot be done while the systems are up and running.

What's more, today's Internet environment has opened up the mainframe to thousands, even millions, of outside users—employees, business partners and customers. As a vital component of business processes, the mainframe must participate in business-to-business transactions with systems outside the enterprise, such as those in supply and distribution chains.

The resulting complexity has increased the potential for human error and for errant code in applications. It increases the likelihood that people will make operational errors that can cause data loss. Complexity also increases the probability of coding errors in applications, which can result in the contamination of business-critical databases. For example, in updating a database, an administrator makes a single keystroke error in a batch update job that causes the update to be performed with the wrong input data set, contaminating critical business data.

HOW TO ADDRESS THIS PROBLEM?

Intelligent automation provides the right and needful solution..

Intelligent automation brings with it several major advantages. It masks the complexity of the IT infrastructure and helps ensure that IT system-management processes are performed in a repeatable, consistent and timely fashion using best practices. The result is a dramatic reduction in the risk of error, along with an auditable trail to ensure regulatory compliance.

The other benefits include

Minimizing failed changes to IT infrastructure.

Maintaining service quality as conditions change.

Detecting and eliminating contaminated data.

Preserving skills of experienced mainframe personnel.

Ensuring successful and speedy recovery from disasters.