Organizations of all sizes and shapes must comply with government and industry regulations. Some regulations are limited to public companies, while others are relevant only to certain verticals. Many regulations cut across type, size, and industry in their impact. In addition to legally mandated requirements, many organizations voluntarily adopt quality and process standards (such as Six Sigma or ITIL) or establish performance guidelines that impact employees and customer agreements. Adhering to these standards brings with it additional (and not always overlapping) sets of rules. In compliance with these standards, regulations, and rules - or just to maintain best practices - most organizations are implementing some degree of business continuity or disaster recovery plan.

While most information can (at least in theory) be recorded on paper, virtually all organizations now keep personnel, customer, financial, transactional and other records in digital format. Indeed, in this day and age, most organizations operate at the intersection of compliance and digital data. After all, compliance and digital data have become inextricably intermingled. Compliance is only manageable when information is digitized, and the proliferation of digital data makes compliance more essential. Organizations need to be following a set of rules about how to manage the growing stores of digital information they are accruing.

The bottom line: Whether legal requirements are in place, whether the rules and regulations are self-imposed, or whether there is a combination of factors in play, prudent business practice calls for backing up and securely housing digital data.

This whitepaper describes how compliance impacts back strategy. Compliance-related requirements need to drive the backup strategy, and the backup strategy needs to support whatever compliance-related requirements an organization has in place. What does having and enforcing a backup strategy accomplish for an organization? For one, it demonstrates to regulators and auditors the capability of protecting and restoring critical data. It can also get databases quickly back in business after a disaster occurs - whether from terrorist attack or hacker intrusion, hurricanes or a burst pipe, or just plain human error. Further, it can help protect and defend organizations when litigation arises from employees, customers, competitors, or regulators.