A typical corporate database environment has over 100 databases and often at least five or more database servers.

The most important of these databases require continuous monitoring, with high redundancy and up time, while other less important databases do not require this level of management. The Database Business Criticality Matrix ranks each database in terms of its relative importance to the business and provides insight into what is really happening in the data layer of your IT operation.

It can be used for a variety of purposes, from capacity and disaster recovery planning to communicating and gaining agreement with senior management and other business stakeholders around cost control, data/application availability and other IT department planning activities. The Database Business Criticality Matrix is the cornerstone for any genuine Business Continuity Planning activity.