DSP Blog

Why no one really wants to know what the Risks are

Written by Jon Cowling | 05-Feb-2016 16:27:51

Why no one really wants to know what the Risks are

Risks in the world of Enterprise IT are always present. As an Application and Database Services Provider, risk is one of the key reasons why we’re in business. The risk of an IT Project overrunning, or the risk of a key application not being available or the risk of losing a competitive edge – it’s all risk.

An interesting thing we see though talking with prospects and clients is the aversion in actually defining exactly what risks are apparent with their operation and applications they deliver.

Sure, you’re backed up from an Infrastructure point of view, but does this mean you’re recoverable?

If you are, how quickly can you recover? Do you have a clear understanding on how long your DBA or Application team could return your core applications to the business?

Infrastructure vendors often talk about 99.95% up time or the elusive ‘five nines’ (99.999%) when it comes to network, storage, server or VM technology. This is great – but if the database and application tier isn’t accounted for, then it means very little to the business end users. What’s more if the process isn’t documented properly, and the people aren’t there to follow it, then the technology SLA doesn’t mean anything – downtime and loss of revenue will occur.

Operational Insurance

An Applications and Database Service Provider, like DSP, can help with this. Our Technology Solutions team can determine real RTO and RPOs from an application availability level. They will look at your Infrastructure, look at your Data Platform and review your Application Stack to help you define what risks are apparent. They will help you decide the cost:benefit ratio of action and no action.

dsp’s Support Services, we can ensure the process and people are there 24*7 so there are no gaps in service.
Managed Services for either E-Business Suite or your Database tier means your infrastructure SLAs actually mean something – you’ll have the people and the process to operate and maintain your technology, leaving you to direct, optimise and deliver an overall service to your end users.

If you already have the people, process and technology to deliver in place to deliver an effective service, and the environment is optimised for pro-activity, then a Database and E-Business Suite support service can cover you for the gaps in BAU operations. Peak busy periods and emergencies are covered, resulting in saving the costs of using contractors or rotating a 24/7 shift.

Fitting it in

Upon taking up a Managed DBA or E-Business Suite service from DSP, we document your environment – but more importantly, we get to know your business. We understand critical batch processes, interfaces, and proactively monitor common E-Business Suite and Database issues. Customer Take-on is serious business for us. Once the documentation and process is in place, the service slots into your operation seamlessly with only the cost savings and service improvements showing.