However, the BlackBerry of today is a very different tool to that which businesses first embraced back in 1999. The days of BlackBerry being used solely as a tool to connect to email on the move are gone, and SMEs are now using the device to also access applications, including sales order processing, SQL databases and intranet portals.
As reliance on the BlackBerry handset grows so the dependency on the IT infrastructure, including the BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES), which underpins it grows. This leads to SMEs having to find adequate ways to ensure the information being accessed remains available at all times. After all, if users are unable to connect to applications via their smartphones then essentially all they are left with is an expensive mobile handset.
In today's challenging economic environment, smaller businesses with a mobile workforce cannot afford to lose access to their BlackBerry service. The repercussions from loss of service could be damaging both financially and in terms of reputation, with the latter inevitably causing the former at some point. However, few SMEs have either the expertise or financial resources in place to implement a business continuity solution for BES and the
email and database applications that supply the smartphones.
With this in mind, SMEs should be exploring solutions that provide specific availability protection for key applications, such as Microsoft® Exchange and SQL Server. Five years ago, some downtime of these applications could be tolerated, but today's small firms demand 24/7 access to these key applications. Affordability, reliability and simplicity are three crucial considerations for the smaller business when considering protecting their BlackBerry environment from downtime.
Because traditional backup solutions generally only recover data from the last restore point (often the previous day) and require costly manual intervention, organisations instead need to be looking at continuous availability offerings where the health of the corporate BlackBerry environment is monitored around the clock and data is replicated between a primary and secondary server.
Should any infrastructure problems occur, organisations should have the ability to automatically transfer users to a secondary server. In this case, users will experience no interruption to the service and the business can continue to operate as normal. This level of automation is crucial, both in terms of keeping the business up and running while the problem is resolved, and also in simplifying the failover process and reducing the resources required to monitor and manage the continuity of the BlackBerry environment.
If a mobile workforce is to be deployed effectively, then downtime is simply not an option. Availability and flexibility go hand-in-hand together, and for SMEs to maximise the benefits of mobile working, they first must ensure a stable and reliable corporate BlackBerry environment.
For more information visit www.neverfailgroup.com
