Most banks yet to establish Disaster Recovery Site
Thursday, 11 June 2009
Munima Sultana
Most of the commercial banks, which have already introduced core online banking, are yet to establish Disaster Recovery Site (DRS) to replicate the data of millions of clients from being lost during any natural disaster.
Disaster Recovery Site (DRS) is an important component in the Bangladesh Bank guideline on Information and Communication Technology for commercial banks and financial institutes to ensure continuity of banking information.
The guideline as part of the Business Continuity Plan (BCP) gives highest importance to setting up of DRS in all commercial banks, which have data centre to cover operational risks including wide area disasters, data centre disasters and recovery plan.
Banking sources said among the online banks, only three to four banks have DR sites, but the rest are either in the process to set up or at planning level.
But they said most of these sites have been set up either within bank or small distance area of the data centres violating the central bank's guideline.
According to BB's ICT guideline, DR site must be set up at a minimum 10 kilometers radius of distance from the production site (data centre). But banking sector experts say it should be out of earthquake seismic zone area or out of the city.
"In some cases, the DRS is set up out of the country," said an IT official of first generation bank preferring anonymity.
Most of the commercial banks, which have already introduced core online banking, are yet to establish Disaster Recovery Site (DRS) to replicate the data of millions of clients from being lost during any natural disaster.
Disaster Recovery Site (DRS) is an important component in the Bangladesh Bank guideline on Information and Communication Technology for commercial banks and financial institutes to ensure continuity of banking information.
The guideline as part of the Business Continuity Plan (BCP) gives highest importance to setting up of DRS in all commercial banks, which have data centre to cover operational risks including wide area disasters, data centre disasters and recovery plan.
Banking sources said among the online banks, only three to four banks have DR sites, but the rest are either in the process to set up or at planning level.
But they said most of these sites have been set up either within bank or small distance area of the data centres violating the central bank's guideline.
According to BB's ICT guideline, DR site must be set up at a minimum 10 kilometers radius of distance from the production site (data centre). But banking sector experts say it should be out of earthquake seismic zone area or out of the city.
"In some cases, the DRS is set up out of the country," said an IT official of first generation bank preferring anonymity.