Although the benefits of enterprise resource planning (ERP) are numerous, including improvements to the program, idle time, the game inventory, and access to distribution channels, the use of ERP has major continuity problems. Companies do not want to talk about how vulnerable they are – for obvious reasons. And ERP vendors are in business to talk about how their software – not what happens if you are not running. System integrators are behind the end of the installation of the ERP and, frankly, not much experience with disaster recovery anyway. equipment manufacturers to provide fault tolerance to customers that their systems are capable of redundancy, but does not address what happens when physical installation is injured or not the grid.
Interestingly, many companies are preparing to move to the ERP implementation are also migrating to the more complex, less robust client / server for the first time. In many ways, this transition of technology can exacerbate the effect of the integration efforts with the platform to further decrease the reliability and lack of experience with client / server systems.
To understand the impact of the activity of a fault, note the key strengths of ERP
• Integrated Financial statements – once in place, the ERP system provides timely financial data without the need to “close the books” each month, there is no downtime. But when an interrupt occurs, the company’s financial heart stops.
• Inventory management – companies are learning to live within the deadlines. But when faced ERP, supply chain of raw materials stopped.
• Turnover – in a more rigorous management of ERP, this function is related to the availability of inventory and other accounting systems. But when the system is broken, the loop stops the application.
In the broadest sense, the potential of the “holes” in the dike of the ERP fall into three general categories.
1) Complexity:
The complexity of a system of “all or nothing with these interdependencies is a problem. Note the multiple” internal “interfaces, where different ERP modules interface between other databases, various third party products, or even connections with existing systems. external interfaces can be just as annoying, the creation of exhibitions with links to third party payroll, bank transfer operations and subcontractors, to name a few.
2) Resources:
Staff resources and experience are also problematic. internal teams get tired of long hours of installation and altered by organizational changes. The number of professionals in the implementation of ERP has always been lower than demand for them. Disaster recovery and contingency planning side of the ERP is a skill set that is almost nonexistent in the labor market in general.
3) education:
The last category is the mindset of senior management. Business continuity has never been a high priority for some organizations. When it comes to ERP, the situation is compounded by the distraction of trying to implement the new approach, there is little attention to the risks of ERP. Educate senior management on issues of race to break with this new approach to business is crucial.
Brave New World
Regardless of industry, the prevalence and degree of integrated systems has shifted the point of view of all activities. Today, companies are more sensitive to delays of any kind. The degree of interconnection, either through the exchange of electronic exchange of long-standing data (EDI) or an application of e-commerce start-ups is an excellent example of how many things have changed.
Worldwide pre-ERP, the company has several break points, key moments in the systems and processes that ventilation was possible, but there were not many alternatives. In the era of the PRS, there are fewer points of failure – but now the company is very vulnerable at a time – without recourse to manual procedures and there is no tolerance for latency recovery.
When time becomes an asset of more and more critical, the organization must have an appointment back in business strategy. In the past, a process of “traditional” means the recovery time between the incident and the full restoration – involving time travel, to recover the tapes, and often the restoration of long-term data. For some organizations, a few days was acceptable for the other 24 hours was the requirement. What many today the implementation of ERP solutions do not realize is that for them, once they “go live”, your strategy should include a real-time solution. Otherwise, while they are busy systems back online, the organization has stopped completely. production stops, stops billing functions such as sales and inventory stop, you can write checks for payment, etc. The list is long, depending on the number of modules or business related functions.
To make matters worse, the safety net procedures manual recovery of lost data – the “catch up”, as it is commonly called – can not be an option for a company based ERP. The staff are not available, the paper trail exists only in electronic form. In this new type of organization, the automated system has much control over the process, the system is the enterprise.
If recovery efforts can be classified as traditional recovery applications and ERP version of the recovery is really the recovery of infrastructure. Retrieving an ERP environment is a complex process into three levels – that is not available unless all three levels are in place:
• Database server applications with all teachers
• application servers, frontal systems and subsystems such as traffic from other source middleware and other tools
• individual desktops and workstations that serve the end-user interface
ERP for the organization within the traditional recovery of 48 hours could be a death sentence. necessary for recovery of debt “window” has been greatly reduced by increasing the level of integration in the company, and other approaches are necessary to remedy the situation.
But how can this be?
First, we must restore our thinking – the ERP environment is not a hardware problem. The technology is essentially the same as that found in a non-ERP. What is significantly different is the business imperative.
Planning for business continuity and ERP share a common denominator: they are two matters of business, not technology issues. ERP business model clearly supports the problem of interruption of the supply chain – which is the high cost of protecting it. Planning done in conjunction with the integration of the system is more cost effective and allows companies to do things right the first time. Done together, a process sharpens.
Continuity Plan
Developing a business continuity plan is no easy task. It’s hard work. If done right, gives a measure of security for a company that probably has invested millions in ERP implementation. The following tips may be helpful to consider:
• Take on issues of business continuity at the beginning of the implementation of ERP.
• Your own internal staff are already tired from the long process of installing ERP and others in the process of organizational change efforts. Assign business continuity experts to help develop a specific plan for ERP seek to provide experience in multivendor environments and ERP.
• Develop a business continuity plan for interdependency of detail of the ERP solution and between ERP and other system infrastructure.
• Test continuity plan regularly, using detailed scripts.
• Increase the risk of failure of ERP system to manage and involve from the beginning to find appropriate solutions. They must understand and respond to this risk.
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