Modern Data Protection

Chapter 2. Gathering and Determining Service Levels

Note

This chapter was written by Jeff Rochlin, who spent many years working in an organization that did work for the Department of Defense (DOD) and strictly followed Military Standard 480B (MIL-STD-480B) regarding what they call configuration control. I first met Jeff while consulting for that company over 20 years ago. I learned so much about change control, working with Jeff in this environment, that I could think of no one better to write this chapter.

The purpose of this chapter is to explain the business and political aspects of the process of building or enhancing your data protection system. Equally important to designing a good technical solution is getting buy-in from everyone who will either benefit from it or pay for it. For more on the technical aspects of designing or refining your data protection system, see Chapter 16.

Data protection is not the sexy part of IT. It reminds the organization that it is vulnerable to various risks that often have nothing to do with IT’s core competency. The resources that need to be applied are costly and, in most cases, don’t show up in the final product you are selling to your customers. You are selling your organization on an insurance policy that, deep down, no one wants to buy. It might not be easy, but the truth remains that your data protection plan will be one of the most important investments you will make in any organization.

Before you go off and spend big chunks of a ...