Implementing a remote data replication policy is the first step toward a comprehensive disaster recovery plan, which is no longer an option but a necessity for many IT computing environments. The government has recognized the enormous risk represented by the loss of critical data and is stepping up its efforts to mandate certain requirements across industries such as healthcare, banking, brokerage and insurance. For example, all healthcare-related industries were required to comply with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Health Insurance and Portability Act of 1996 (HIPPA) by the end of 2003. Among the many mandates of this act are data availability requirements to ensure that information is available at all times. In response to the recovery deficiencies that surfaced in the aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attacks, the SEC has published new disaster recovery requirements for banks and brokerage houses mandating both off-site requirements and recovery time limits. The Enron fiasco resulted in the Sarbanes-Oxley act that imposes new records retention standards for corporate governance.
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