Executive Summary (This is a document excerpt)

Three years have now passed since the events of September 11, 2001. The first 12 months following this industry-changing event were characterized by a significant increase in awareness and interest in disaster recovery (DR) — also known as business continuity planning (BCP) — technologies and associated service offerings, although the investments in programs and infrastructure did not immediately follow this discovery process as expected. However, sustained investments in these programs beginning in late 2002 suggest that this delay was the result of responsible planning — not a lack of resolve or commitment. For organizations initiating or revitalizing recovery plans, one of the most critical strategy decisions is how to best provision physical recovery site resources. Price increases for commercial recovery site services resulting from market consolidation coupled with more demanding recovery service-level objectives are driving organizations to bring recovery site resource provisioning back in-house. During the past 24 months, we have observed a significant shift in primary recovery site strategies moving from shared commercial to internal models, and we expect this trend to continue for the foreseeable future.