Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity Solutions

The Purpose Alawy Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity solutions help reduce the risk of accidents and minimize the impact of unavoidable disasters. Our services help you focus on real threats to business and prioritize solutions.

Disaster Recovery Plans provide a higher level of preparedness to business, lower damage costs, and help control risk in tandem with providing better asset management strategies. We help you prepare for disasters, accidents, and tragedies�to return operations to normal as quickly as possible and to keep downtime to a minimum.

Reduce the Risk of Disasters That Don�t Have to Happen :
We can help you reduce the risk of some disasters. You can greatly reduce human threats like vandalism and sabotage with the right technology coupled with the right policies and practices�and a well-trained staff. You can anticipate technical threats like equipment failure and power outages�and demote them from potential disasters to inconveniences.

Reduce the Impact of Disasters That Are Unavoidable :
We help you prepare for disasters that are real and unpredictable: natural disasters such as fires and earthquakes or human tragedies like terrorism and war. We help you develop a plan to deal with the disaster and to get back to business with as little disruption as possible. There are forces that are beyond anyones reasonable control�but you don�t have to be helpless when you face them.

We can:

• Assess your current disaster recovery plan to see if its complete and adequate
• Create a detailed technical infrastructure strategy to implement your current plan
• Develop a new plan
• Implement the technical architecture that your plan requires
• Develop a plan thats appropriate depending on whether you own or lease your site
• Adjust our recommendations depending on whether your site is hot, warm, or cold.

Hot sites are the safest but the most expensive to set up and maintain. Data is replicated offsite and it can be replaced almost immediately. Warm sites are similar, but the data isn�t refreshed as often. Cold or cool sites maintain data on a service bureau model, and it has to be brought back into the main system after a loss. Many businesses use all three, depending on need.

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Value to You

Downtime Can Cost as much as $1M an Hour.
Depending on your business�and given the potential for lost revenue, lost productivity, lost sales opportunities, inventory spoilage, litigation, and so on�the cost of downtime can range from the thousands to over $1M an hour. Given the large costs of disasters, it�s possible that a major one could cost you your entire business.

Failure Can Have Legal Ramifications.
Certain regulations and industry standards require a recovery and continuity plan. Without an up-to-date plan, you might be out of compliance.

Planning Keeps You Competitive.
If you�re a business such as an application service provider or an Internet Service Provider, you may need to achieve 99.999% availability to remain competitive and protect the value of your brand. Disaster planning helps keep you competitive.

Planning Protects Your Employees.
Protecting your profits and your ability to do business is, of course, essential�but protecting your employees is paramount.

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How We Work

1. We identify critical business processes. We help you pinpoint the processes that are truly critical to your business�to focus your plan on whats essential. We evaluate the cost not just of downtime�but of working around problems and catching up when systems are back online.�
2. We assess the impact of a disaster on your business. We identify the longest downtime you can tolerate�and the greatest amount of data you can afford to lose. We develop resource requirements. We conduct a cost-benefit analysis.�
3. We identify risks to your critical business processes. We itemize everything that plays a part in your processes�from users to workstations to servers to data. We map the elements to the processes. We identify the risks to those elements�and the protections in place.
4. We examine the architecture of your network and the design of the underlying processes and controls for inherent risks.
5. We develop a business continuity plan. We identify the risks that are greatest�and a strategy for helping to reduce them. We develop a technical infrastructure strategy that includes:
   • Redundant data storage
   • Diverse network connectivity
   • Fault-tolerant facilities
   • Monitoring services
6. We prepare you to recover from a disaster. We determine the best approach that�s going to allow you to return to normal as quickly as possible. We prepare alternate processing capabilities. We document your critical systems and develop detailed plans for rebuilding them. We plan for off-site storage for your documents and data.�
7. We develop a disaster recovery plan. We develop a procedure for activating the plan. We define a recovery team that�s guided by a process and with assigned responsibilities. We develop a process for setting up operations at an alternate site and resuming your critical business processes there.�
8. We reinforce maintenance for your disaster recovery program. We test the plan with walk-throughs and simulations. We train your staff and build their awareness. We develop procedures for incorporating changes.

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How Long It Takes The amount of time it takes to develop a disaster recovery and business continuity plans varies widely, from three weeks to six months.

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The Results

A Plan for Prevention and Recovery.
We provide you with documentation that identifies the faults that can contribute to a disaster - as well as the faults that can inhibit your recovery. We also give you recommendations on changes to make to your architecture to help remedy the faults.

A Business Analysis.
We provide you with an analysis of the impact a disaster could have on your ability to conduct business�and a financial analysis of what it would cost.

A View of Your Critical Business Processes.
We document the processes that are most critical to your business. We identify the technical elements that support them, the risks to the process, and recommendations for reducing the risk.

Evidence for Your Decisions.
If you�re the CTO, you�ll be able to use the information we provide to determine where the faults in your system lie. You�ll be able to decide what needs to be done immediately and the best way to reduce the risks you face.

If you�re the CFO, you�ll be able to look at each critical business process and determine how much revenue is potentially at stake�and how your brand could potentially suffer�if the process fails. You�ll be able to see clearly what your choices are. The data we provide will give you the information you need to calculate how much time and money it will cost to reduce the risk to each process.

Save time and money with a single security assessment based on open standards.
You receive a single, comprehensive analysis with a strategy to remain in compliance and a custom report for each audit request. Get quarterly check-ups to make sure you stay up to date.

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Why Alawy

Alawy has worked to secure the networks of Fortune 500 companies in the financial, energy, insurance, media and consumer goods sector in the United States. A significant amount of this experience has been within the financial services and banking sectors—assessing infrastructure security and architecting and deploying secure solutions. We participate in the FBI's InfraGard as advisers in threat and security matters.

Our Security Consultants are Software Engineers trained in Information Security. They understand systems architecture. They see the whole picture. We’re not a software company limited to our own line of products. We provide our clients with the solution that best fits their business and budget needs. We do not cater to a "one size fits all" approach. Our focus is on protecting the sensitive information you are trusted to safeguard -- information belonging to your business and your clients -- from malicious theft or careless mishandling.

Security isn't just about security; it's about your business. We focus on providing solutions tailored to your corporate goals and the real threats you face. Read about Our Approach - the foundation for all our work.

Focus on your business:

• We help you stay competitive. We use our knowledge and experience to benchmark your risk against your industry.
• We value actions by their consequences. Our focus is consequences, not just risk.
• We focus on our relationship with our customers. Our goal is to be your trusted security advisor.
• We provide recommendations that are vendor independent to give you the freedom to implement the solution that suits you best.
• We help you stay competitive. Our business is security, not just consulting.

• We have a wide variety of clients in a broad range of industries. That exposes us to the need for many different architectures, designs, and solutions.
• Our consultants ar/clients/index.jspsionals who’ve worked with Fortune 500 companies or in the financial, energy, insurance, media and consumer goods industries.
• Our team of consultants is made up of Certified Information System Security Professionals (CISSPs).

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