When it comes to business continuity, the T word most often in mind for many companies is not terrorism; it's technology and a company's potential vulnerability. Risks include Internet viruses, loss of telephone lines and electrical power and other network outages caused by faulty equipment, employee sabotage or error and a host of other potential events that could interrupt doing business via the Web or over an intranet.

While companies are certainly alert to the possibility of another Sept. 11, they are just as much driven these days by the recognition of how dependent they have become on technology and the potential impact a computer network shutdown can have on their ability to conduct business. "Since people really started doing business online, there is much, much more of a concern about being up, on and available seven days a week," says Vickie Malis, vice president of marketing for the off-site data protection unit of Iron Mountain Inc., the world's largest records and information management company. "Information is a corporate asset." And assets have to be protected.

One approach to keeping records and data safe, upon which Iron Mountain's business model was originally premised, is to send the duplicative material to another location entirely. The best practice is "off-site, off-line and out of reach," says Malis.