ABSTRACT
A number of different factors have converged in recent years to elevate the importance of sound information technology (IT) management. The principle driving factor has been the growing dependence on information systems for business operations. The increase has been so significant, it has been suggested that IT should, in fact, be called business technology (BT) because businesses can no longer function without it. The 1992 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City proves the point. According to Disaster Recovery Journal, 80% of the companies housed in the towers sustained unrecoverable losses and more than 60% of those businesses ultimately failed. The cause was not a result of lost data, but a result of lost access. The bombing did not destroy any information systems, but ensuring safety prevented access to those systems for almost a month. Dependency on IT systems has increased substantially since then and so has the importance of good disaster recovery planning.
