Business Continuity in the World of Technology

In this 2012 Financial Executives Forum presentation, Jeremy Kahn, AVP of IT at Hartz Mountain Industries, Inc., provided an overview of cloud computing and their benefits to family offices. He defined cloud computing as “a model for enabling on-demand access to a pool of computing resources that can be provisioned and released with minimal effort.” 

• SaaS (Software as a Service) - hosted software delivery. Some examples include Yahoo and AOL.
• PaaS  (Platform as a Service) – Rental of hardware and operating systems over the Internet specific to provider.  Some examples include  Google and Amazon.
• IaaS  (Infrastructure as a Service) – Rental of hardware from a provider which is provisioned as needed and is generally paid for as used. Allows end user to specify operating system and hardware required. Examples include Dell and VM ware.

• PaaS advantages are data is available on demand, it’s efficient and you only pay for what you need. The big drawback is you do not know where your data is stored. 
• Most seem to be opting for IaaS solutions. Companies buy rack space to host the server and provider supplies back up and software updates. 
• IaaS eliminates maintenance responsibilities and lowers costs
• There are three types of IaaS clouds – private (everything including servers stored completely in your datacenter), public (your data stored on shared equipment) and hybrid (rented servers offsite while keeping some confidential information at home).
• Jeremy recommends larger companies when choosing a provider. They tend to be more expensive, but they are more likely to be there tomorrow.
• Look at providers’ security and backup capabilities. Larger companies like SunGuard, IBM or Equinix often have a military grade facility and security.
• It is important to have a business continuity and disaster recovery plan. Hartz developed theirs with Gartner. Jeremy recommends revisiting these plans periodically.