How We Decide – Risks

The current unfortunate situation in the Gulf of Mexico has made me very aware of the importance of risk awareness.  Risks are everywhere.  We take them all the time. Sometimes we are not even aware of the risks involved or the consequences those risks entail.

Databases are at the heart of today’s corporations.  They make a business tick.   It never ceases to amaze me what we find when we first take over the administration of new customers’ database environments.    It surprises me how some of these businesses have been able to operate without major disasters for some time.  The risk level of many of these environments would make some CEOs and other stakeholders sick.  Not only do we find problems with the environment, but we also find environments without proper backup and recovery setups.  So we have unstable environments, some with high rates of on-going change and several with poor backup/recovery capabilities.  OOPS!!!  By the way, not every environment we inherit is that bad.  We have also seen some very well setup and stable environments.

This situation begs several questions:

• What decisions lead to environments rid with risk?
• Are folks at these companies cognizant of such risk?
• Are IT managers and professionals as risk-sensitive as they should be?

Risk assessments involve two primary dimensions.  The first dimension is severity and the second is probability.  The figure below illustrates the relationship between the two dimensions and the resulting risk level given each of the magnitudes.

Risk mitigation and management starts by identifying the probability or likelihood of database availability and or performance issues and the impact such issue would have on your business.  With those data points in hand, you can determine the level of risk and thus the urgency of attention and action required to reduce your risk.  Risk management is a highly proactive decision-making process.  The first step is to become highly aware of the fact that risks exist and are always lurking out there.   Once you acknowledge this fact, then you need to take the steps to develop a risk mitigation strategy and plan.

Risk should be a key part of most decisions we make regardless.  Risks exist 24x7x365. They are unavoidable but they are manageable.

Here are a few questions to ponder:

• Do you know what your risks are?
• Are you managing them?
• Do you keep them in mind when you make decisions?

Just make sure your IT shop has no unstoppable database leaks in the making.

To learn more about the impact of database risk and our mitigation approach visit our risk mitigation section of the website.

The BEST is Yet to Come!

Epi Torres, CEO