"Business Readiness is replacing Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Planning.  Savvy IT departments are learning from the Boy Scouts and being prepared at all times - demonstrating that an active-active approach is the most effective."

The Standish Group’s "The Trends in Readiness" report looks at the trends and drivers causing the rise of readiness programs and the role stakeholders play in this approach.  It also considers the ten major categories organizations need to consider when looking at creating an active readiness program.

"Increasing IT and business readiness was the second most important IT priority for CIOs in 2008. IT readiness goes beyond disaster recovery, high availability, and business continuity planning. Readiness is not planning. Rather, it is being prepared for disasters by having active processes that continue before, during, and after any type of failure," said Jim Crear, CIO, The Standish Group,  "Implementing a readiness program requires products, infrastructure, and training beyond that required for standard every day operations," he said

True business readiness is achieved through continuous processing architecture (CPA).  Such architecture is not achieved without an associated cost and effort.

This report differs somewhat from the normal Standish Group research report format, in that it looks at the current driver in each of the major categories as identified in the CPA.

CPA major categories include: HARDWARE AND ARCHITECTURE, SYSTEM SOFTWARE, OPERATIONS, SECURITY, SITE CATASTROPHE, ENVIRONMENT, NETWORKING, SERVICEABILITY, APPLICATION SOFTWARE, and BUSINESS OPERATIONS.

The Standish Group’s "The Trends in Readiness" report will be available free of charge to Standish Group subscribers on St. Valentine's Day, February 14th.  Non-subscribers may obtain copies directly from The Standish Group for $1,000 per copy.