DISASTER RECOVERY 
JOURNAL

P. O. Box 510110
St. Louis, MO 63151
(314) 894-0276 
Fax: (314) 894-7474
Internet www.drj.com 
E-mail drj@drj.com

PUBLISHER &
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Richard L. Arnold, CBCP
richard@drj.com

SENIOR EDITOR
Janette Ballman
janette@drj.com

MANAGING EDITOR
Jon Seals
jon@drj.com

COPY EDITORS
Richard Sandhofer
richards@drj.com
Pamela Clifton
pamelaclifton@hotmail.com

ADVERTISING 
Robert Arnold
bob@drj.com

_____________

Corporate

President/CEO
Richard L. Arnold, CBCP
richard@drj.com

Vice President 
Robert Arnold
bob@drj.com

CONFERENCE COORDINATOR
Patti Fitzgerald, CBCP
patti@drj.com

CONFERENCE REGISTRAR
Merce Knese
mercedes@drj.com

CIRCULATION
Laura Baugh
laurab@drj.com

EXECUTIVE COUNCIL
Patrick Corcoran, IBM Bus. Cont. & Rec. Services
Jeff Dato, MBCP, KPMG
Edward S. Devlin, E.S. Devlin & Associates
Judith Eckles, SunGard Availability Services
James Hammill, CBCP, JMH Consulting Inc.
John Jackson, Independant


INTERNATIONAL
CONTACTS
England: Thom Hetherington
Business Continuity 
Phone: 0161-237-1007
thomh@tempus.demon.co.uk

Australia: Anthony J. Harvey
Journal of Business Continuity
Phone: 0011-613-953-0055-8
fax: 0011-613-953-0528
sector@notability.com.au

Japan: Shinji Hosotsubo
Quake Japan Co., Ltd.
Phone: 03-3215-2880
fax: 03-3215-2881

Brazil: Jose Carlos Ferreira
Disaster Recovery Mercosul
Phone: 55 11 3666-9506
conc2000@uol.com.br
www.drms.com.br

Click Here for a Printable Version

DATA PROTECTION

Business Continuity Via Satellite Communications

By EMIL REGARD

For corporations that rely on their networks to generate revenue (e.g. point-of-sale transactions, securities trading, etc.), protection from network outages or even slowdowns is critical. A network outage translates directly to lost revenue, which no business can afford (see table below).
Disaster recovery (DR) plans and procedures, although critical to information systems management, are not sufficient to meet the needs of these corporations. DR plans enable the retrieval of critical business records from a storage facility, restore lost data and return systems to operation – but may take 48 hours or more to implement.
There is a solution. It is called a business continuity plan — and satellite communications plays a vital role in making it happen.
Since the early 1980s, enterprises have used satellite communications to connect hundreds and thousands of company sites with their corporate data centers. “Satcoms” personify private networking. It can be deployed anywhere, which make it a popular choice for content distribution and remote access networks.

In the 1990s, frame relay and ATM services were introduced to address the need for corporations’ data communications. For some, this consigned older-technology satcom networks to secondary use. A network manager’s technology decision was relatively simple; choose one and go.
If only things were still that simple….
The arrival of the Internet — and the intranets, extranets and the transformation of legacy applications and protocols to the browser environment — created a more complex scene, and one that required all kinds of networks to work together. This is especially true when we consider, broadband; the high-speed “must have” IP networking service to handle an exponentially increasing growth in digital media and streaming video in the enterprise.
Savvy network operators understand that satellite offers true diversity for back-up services. A satellite solution can be deployed faster, less expensively and more easily than a redundant frame relay model. In addition, satellite beats the price/performance of ISDN or dial-up.
Business continuity, disaster recovery and the co-primary use of satellite and terrestrial networks have brought us full circle. A single technology solution no longer fits the entire bill.

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