Disaster Recovery Planning (DRP) is no longer just about computer system availability.  While this may have been the original concept, today, the definition of disaster recovery has been broadened to mean:  "The ability to respond to an interruption in services by implementing a disaster recovery plan to restore an organization's critical business functions."

Organizations are very dependent on their IT infrastructure to support their business processes and deliver a competitive advantage.  If a disaster affects their ability to operate the IT infrastructure, business processes stop, and they lose market share.  There is also proof that some of these organizations may go out of business.  A disaster may be anything that results in the inability to access the IT infrastructure.  These may include: natural disasters, fire, power failure, terrorist attacks, theft, and computer viruses.  It may even be in the form of human error.  The result is the same - failure to operate the IT infrastructure to support the critical business processes.

GBS' recovery services fall into four areas:

• Detect the disaster effects as quickly as possible.
• Notify any affected parties so that they can take action.
• Isolate the affected systems so that damage cannot spread.
• Repair the critical affected systems so that operations can be resumed.