| a company relies heavily on database activity for | | | | information from such sources can waste valuable |
| critical everyday business operations or only for | | | | time, require intensive reorganization by IT |
| select requirements, the loss of data due to | | | | professionals and result in financial losses due to |
| technological failure can have far reaching negative | | | | database unavailability and customer disappointment. |
| implications. The loss of valuable information and | | | | Additionally, scheduled nightly backups often result in |
| records can cause productivity setbacks, lost profits, | | | | periods of several hours during which applications are |
| lost customers and headaches for everyone involved. | | | | unavailable to employees or customers. |
| Aside from the obvious business challenges | | | | In today’s information technology driven |
| associated with the loss of data, legislation such as | | | | market, mainframe availability and security are of |
| the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) places requirements | | | | utmost importance. Fortunately, the need for reliable |
| on the retention and on request production of certain | | | | and efficient mainframe data recovery systems has |
| types of financial data. Companies assume the risk of | | | | not been overlooked by innovative enterprise data |
| non-compliance if they are unable to produce | | | | availability software and service companies. Fully |
| information within the specified time constraint | | | | integrated backup and recovery utilities for IMS |
| required by Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) or other | | | | databases are now available to simplify, automate |
| information focused legislation. Database and | | | | and expedite the process of recovery without |
| mainframe disaster recovery is more important in | | | | compromising crucial database availability. Such |
| today’s technology dependent business world | | | | solutions have the capability to, for example, |
| than ever before. | | | | automatically accumulate and copy records on a |
| In the past, many businesses utilized offsite data | | | | periodic basis for ease of future retrieval, with some |
| tape storage as a crucial facet of their disaster | | | | utilities even providing the flexibility of reverting to |
| recovery plans. Such offsite tape storage entails | | | | certain point in time. |
| serious security risks by today’s standards, | | | | Many companies are already discovering the direct |
| such as the possibility of loss, theft or damage to | | | | benefits associated with such mainframe and |
| the tapes while stored at the offsite location or in | | | | database recovery utilities. |
| transit. In the event of a disaster, the retrieval of | | | | |