by Pat McGrew, EDP
Welcome back to the HVCO Data Management Pavilion! We're continuing with our topic of Disaster Recovery Planning with a look at print and mail recovery. If you do a web search on the topic of disaster recovery you find pointers to stories in the media covering data backup and recovery, recovery of data from damaged hard drives, and discussions of strategies for managing the business process after a catastrophe. With a bit more digging you'll find pointers to some of the better known companies that provide hot sites, like SunGuard, Comdisco/HP, StorageTek, and EDS. The services these companies provide can be invaluable when a disaster strikes, but their services often stop at the Data Center door, which is not where your business stops.
A comprehensive disaster plan should address how you are going to keep data flowing to your print applications and how you are going to keep your print and mail operation in operation. After all, if you can't send out invoices and bills your revenue stream dries up quickly. That is where a company like Mail-Gard Concepts, Inc. (www.mail-gard.com), based outside of Philadelphia, and their partners can play a key role.
At the risk of sounding like a commercial for Mail-Gard, consider the fact that they have a staff of experts who have hands on experience in the print and mail business and the disaster recovery planning business. Add to that a history of working with the leading print vendors to ensure their ability to handle just about any type of data and you have a compelling story.
Mail-Gard provides direct solutions and also partners with the leading vendors in our industry, including Xerox, IBM, Moore, Oce, Roll Systems, and OPServer. They recently announced an enhancement to their partnership with OPServer in the form of On-Demand DR. Using this service from Mail-Gard and OPserver ensures that all of your print resources and production data are mirrored offsite so that you can continue your print and mail operations in the event of a catastrophe.
Why is that important? Cash flow is a big reason. With a service like Mail-Gard's the enterprise can reduce recovery time from days or weeks to hours. And when your print and mail operation drives your revenue that can be the difference between survival and financial collapse.
Another reason to consider such a service is that your competitors may already be using one. While industry analysts estimate that about 80 percent of all large and medium enterprises are not currently covered by a comprehensive recovery plan that includes print and mail operations, that means that about 20 per cent are covered. That's something to think about when you consider the issues involved in print and mail recovery. After all, lead times for ordering printers, bursters, trimmers, barcode readers, and all of the other equipment that goes into your mail operation can be months, and used equipment may not be compatible with your applications and business process.
Next time we'll look at some of the problems you can encounter in a recovery operation if you haven't planned ahead.
If you have any questions, please send them to us at pm@outputlinks.com with OutputLinks in the subject.