Tool

Risk and Business Impact Analysis (RBIA) is about assigning the right resources to the most critical areas of the business in the event of a disaster. This Excel-based tool is designed to assist IT professionals in performing the RBIA exercise...

Template/Policy

A Project Charter is an integral document to any initiative. This template will help clarify goals, determine guidelines, and establish milestones to keep a VDI implementation on track.

Note

As an Applications Development & Maintenance leader, you must address the key challenges facing the role. The effective management of legacy applications is one of those challenges.

Video

Building a solid Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) is only half of the battle; the plan isn't going to operate itself. This videocast explores additional tasks that the enterprise must engage in once the plan is complete. Ensure your enterprise can...

(10-Sept-10) Is there really such a thing as a perfect IT organization? In spite of intelligent, experienced, well-meaning managers and staff, they all suffer to some extent from bad habits, sloppy processes, or poorly defined initiatives that...

(19-Nov-10) The new features, improved connectivity, and increased complexity of today’s printers are a double-edged sword. Although networked peripherals are undoubtedly more functional and efficient (albeit more costly), allowing devices to be...

Tool

An SQL Server upgrade has numerous one-time and ongoing expenses spanning a range of areas and project phases. It is important to develop an accurate budget up front so that expectations regarding the timeline of these costs, throughout the...

Template/Policy

Whether the SQL Server upgrade project requires one weekend or many to complete, it is important to collect and document all issues, resolutions, and changes experienced throughout the process to learn from and improve upon in future projects....

Note

SQL 2008 R2 is a promising upgrade candidate for organizations that currently have a Software Assurance agreement with Microsoft, or require BI functionality but lack the budget to implement. Get started on the SQL Server upgrade initiative by...

Solution Set

Organizations running an SQL database rely heavily on it to function properly for business continuity purposes. An upgrade can be costly if it results in major downtime and significant application rework. Use this solution set to make the...

Template/Policy

An SQL Server upgrade project charter is essential to the planning phase of the project to identify scope, and hit the ground running. It lays out important information along with real world examples, such as the project description, key success...

Tool

Application development outsourcing initiative success depends greatly on a thorough contract. While it does not have to be overly complex and laboriously constructed to be sound, the contract must systematically cover all aspects of a project...

Video

Your organization likely already has some form of Disaster Recovery (DR) capability in place, whether you realize it or not. However, that doesn't mean your organization has the right amount of DR capability. This video will help you determine...

Template/Policy

Risk assessments are used to determine the likelihood and magnitude of information system harm, in the event of a security breach. This in turn determines how much of that risk should be mitigated and what controls should be used to achieve that...

Template/Policy

Terminating staff is a time of high stress for everyone involved. It's easy to make mistakes that open up the enterprise to risk. Don't take any chances. Use this checklist to ensure that an employee's departure is handled legally, ethically and...

Video

Policy enforcement can be a tremendous headache for IT leaders: IT takes the initiative to spearhead policy development and implementation, but the resulting documents often have little clout and are left collecting dust. Protect the...

In the past, it was easier for enterprises to decide if a single or a multi-provider WAN solution was the best choice. However, because of today's cost and performance concerns coupled with business risks, and increased use of cellular services,...

Tool

One of the main objectives of a contract is to reduce risks. The contract should eliminate or reduce ambiguities about who is supposed to do what, when, and how well. The contract should also define what happens when either party fails to meet...

Premium Resource

When a Business Impact and Risk Assessment is completed, you will have a complete list of the risks specific to each IT asset, as well as risk reports and profiles for the business impact analysis. Consider revisiting your Business Impact and...

Premium Resource

The purpose of this bundle is to assist you in creating the basis of the actual DRP document itself. Armed with the results of your business impact analysis and risk assessments, you are now ready for IT Continuity Plan Creation, which is...

An enterprise-wide push to reduce operating costs may lead to mandated budget reductions for IT. For some enterprises, this means reviewing the Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) and putting IT security expenses under a cost management lens. Learn how...

A recent Info-Tech survey found that it is possible to reduce IT costs by outsourcing application development, provided that the outsourcing relationship is carefully managed. Application outsourcing can also be used as a strategy to minimize...

Tool

The ''Contract Negotiation Plan'' can help organize all of the issues for negotiating a vendor contract. It provides a comprehensive checklist of issues and helps the evaluation team determine its target outcomes in negotiation.

Tool

Selecting an appropriate purchase requires balancing out purchase significance with the appropriate amount of research, evaluation, and purchase process formality. Too involved a process can be a waste of time, but skipping important steps in...

When the overall budget available for application projects is significantly reduced, management should reassess project priorities. Use three key indicators to identify which projects should live and which should be deferred. Projects should be...

Note

The first task in completing an IT Continuity Plan is having a clear idea of how IT assets are vulnerable to threats and what level of protection is in place. This means you need to know what assets you have, the specific risks to those assets,...

Despite heavy government intervention to allay further financial crises, many US and Canadian Information Technology leaders are anticipating budget impact from the downturn and should be preparing to manage with less, a recent poll by Info-Tech...

Scenario planning is a dress rehearsal for the unthinkable. Use it to identify single points of failure, ensure agility, mitigate risks, and increase stakeholder confidence.

Template/Policy

When implementing enterprise instant messaging (IM), a security policy ensures that users understand and comply with security measures that IT has devised. Rein in IM security risks in by downloading and tailoring this IM security policy.

With the media promoting the benefits of Instant Messaging (IM) as part of unified communications, but discouraging its use due to security concerns, it may be difficult to determine which side of the argument to buy into. If IM helps the...