In the IT world, disasters come in all shapes and sizes. These can include everything from Category 5 hurricanes, to power outages caused by a nearby construction site. Nearly one-third of IT managers say they have had to implement some part of their disaster-recovery plan in the past year. This is according to a recent survey of 1000 respondents by Symantec Corporation released in August 2008.

It's no wonder that Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery (BC/DR) remains a growing concern for companies of all sizes. In fact, upgrading capabilities in this area was ranked as one of the most critical IT themes by end-user IT decision-makers at several hundred North American and European enterprises, according to Forrester Research's Data Center Infrastructure Survey.

Business continuity/disaster recovery requires a holistic approach that includes storage, infrastructure, servers, applications, middleware and the network. If that weren't complicated enough, today's new technologies are testing traditional methods of backup and data protection.

Murphy's Law exempts no one. In light of new technologies, it's time to take another look at your BC/DR plan.