VietNamNet Bridge – A lot of websites were reportedly attacked recently should go back to normal operation after several hours thanks to the back-up systems. However, analysts have warned that in Vietnam, the proportion of institutions and enterprises which have disaster recovery centers remains modest.

Enterprises urged to set up back-up information systems

At the Security Information Day held in Hanoi in November 2010, Dang Manh Pho, Director of the Technology Division under the Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BIDV), urged banks and institutions to build up and maintain the back-up information technology (IT) systems in order to prevent and fix breakdowns.

Pho said that enterprises and institutions need to build IT back-up systems right now before it is too late, and that it is necessary to consider the back-up systems as an effective tool in order to ensure continuous business operations.

“Back-up IT systems should be seen as one of the three most important factors for information security of enterprises, especially financial and banking enterprises,” Pho said.

According to Nguyen Trong Nghia, Deputy General Director of the Global Data Service Joint Stock Company GDS, when setting up systems and machines serving production and business, enterprises and institutions always have solutions to provide for possible contingencies. However, the solutions can only help fix incidents caused by the inner problems. Meanwhile, an IT disaster recovery center will allow prevention of incidents at a higher level that covers both inner problems and outer forces, including fire, earthquake and hackers.

According to Ngo Tuan Anh, Director of Bkis Telecom, the back-up IT system always runs parallel to the main information system and it can replace the main system when necessary in order to ensure the continuous operation of the information system. Besides, back-up systems can also serve for training, technology transfer or can be used for testing new technology solutions.

According to Phan Thai Dung, representative from the Information Technology Agency under the State Bank of Vietnam, under the current regulations set by the central bank, the back-up IT center of commercial banks must be located at least 30 kilometers  from the main systems and they must have the ability to become operational to replace the main systems after four hours.

Many enterprises decided to set up back-up systems far from the main systems, but still in the same country in order to minimize risks and save money. Meanwhile, many big corporations set up international recovery systems in order to ensure the highest possible protection level.

How to spend money on the systems?

There are no official statistics on investments in disaster recovery centers in Vietnam. However, according to GDS, only some enterprises and agencies, which have high proportions of e-transactions, have back-up systems, such as the Ministry of Finance, the State Bank of Vietnam, commercial banks or stock exchanges.

The Ministry of Finance was one of the first ministries and branches in Vietnam which set up a disaster recovery center in 2005 which has been operating since 2008.

As for BIDV, the commercial banks began thinking of such a center in 2008. According to Pho, BIDV is not the first commercial bank which set up a disaster recovery center, but it is the bank which follows a methodical and reasonable investment plan.

Nghia from GDS believes that the demand for setting up disaster recovery centers will increase in the future, when people have to endure more natural catastrophes, high-tech crimes and terrorism

Source: Thoi bao Kinh te Saigon