Gardner Systems is a major advocate of companies developing a business continuity plan. Many see such a plan as a different name for the familiar concept of an IT disaster recovery strategy. The two are of course inextricably linked but are fundamentally different.

An IT disaster recovery plan aims at just that – planning the ability to recover IT from a catastrophic failure, or a more likely a threatening event. IT premises being destroyed by fire is usually catastrophic for anyone, but the inability to access the same premises for even a limited time is also threatening and needs a contingency plan.

Enterprises are however realising that these days their business is usually entirely dependent upon their critical data, when in the past IT was often just an adjunct to the business process. Given sufficient planning, the IT process can now function from pretty well anywhere and play a big part in your business continuity plan.

Gardner Systems has joined the Liverpool Business Continuity Forum. This forum of Liverpool Businesses now has regular meetings of up to one hundred city enterprises. The Forum was launched by Steve Lambert of Liverpool City Council and now has an influential Advisory Board chaired by Neil Scales of Merseytravel. The Forum presents on all continuity issues, including security, health, weather and of course IT.

We hosted and provided speakers for the LBCMF event of 23^rd November and this month our MD Frank Coward joined the inaugural Advisory Board.

As part of our commitment to the challenge of business continuity on Merseyside, we are currently offering free consultation to interested parties. This has led to a number of local enterprises taking advantage of our hosted and back-up services.

A recent survey of SMEs by Symantec, has found 5%, around 240,000 UK firms, are not taking any steps to backup data and are leaving themselves exposed to risks of data loss and downtime. This is bad enough, but how many of the remaining companies have actually tested their back-ups? Gardner found one company diligently using a cleaning tape as a back-up! Funny until it happens to you………

On 24th September 2009, Gardner Systems and Microsoft will be presenting Essential Business Server 2008. This event is free to attend and runs from 9am – 1pm (including lunch).

This is the perfect opportunity for you to come and speak with Microsoft and Gardner Systems about how your IT infrastructure can save you money. Save money by providing an easy-to-manage technical solution which can address issues you are currently experiencing in your business.

EBS has been specifically designed by Microsoft for the mid-market to address the following issues:

If you wish to attend the event or to find out more click here