Disaster Recovery Planning Template

DRP Backup Solutions

rss@e-janco.com — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 02:46:22 -0600

To plan your data protection solution appropriately, you must first understand the type of technology environment that you are running. Consider the following:

Direct attached storage (DAS): The simplest backup and restore environment, DAS usually consists of a standalone tape drive or an autoloader attached directly to the server that it is protecting. Businesses that operate DAS usually require backups only daily and/or weekly, maintain only a few (one or two) networked servers on each network and do not use online business-critical operations.
Network backup: LAN/SAN-based backup storage uses devices that are managed centrally from a single console through a single backup server, reducing hardware costs, and management time. Businesses that operate LAN/SAN-based backup usually require continuous, business-critical operations as well as hourly or daily backups; have multiple networked servers; and can run multiple operating systems.

Disaster planning, emergency preparedness, or business continuity

rss@e-janco.com — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 10:08:17 -0600

Disaster planning, emergency preparedness, or business continuity (and experts note that there are differences) - the goals are ultimately the same: to get an organization back up and running in the event of an interruption. The problem causing the interruption could be one computer crashing or an entire network crashing. Or it could be an electrical outage or the result of a terrorist activity. The goal is to have some contingency plans in the event of a problem. A disaster recovery plan exists to preserve the organization so that it can continue to offer its services.

A disaster recovery plan is a users' guide - the documentation - for how to preserve an organization. In order for a plan to be useful, it must be created before an interruption occurs. Business continuity is disaster recovery. Lost revenue is a driving force in business continuity. The reason to do a recovery plan is essentially to keep the funding coming in and the services going, and the clients being served.

Emergency planning are those procedures and steps done immediately after an interruption to business.
Disaster recovery are the steps taken to restore some functions so that some level of services can be offered.
Business continuity is restoration planning, completing the full circle to get your organization back to where it was before an interruption.

In order to write your plan, you have to do some planning. This planning is the process that will get you to the step where you then commit your plan to paper - you cant write a plan until you do the preparation. The most difficult thing is getting started; the second most difficult task is keeping the plan current.

Disaster Planning for international enterprises

rss@e-janco.com — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 17:00:28 -0600

Disaster recovery and business continutiy plans for internationaly base organizations need to take in to account limitiations that various counties place on location of data.

Many parts of Europe forbid some data from being transmitted or stored outside of the country. Canada also has some rules that prohibit some data being stored in the United States due to the U.S. Patriot Act's provisions that let the federal government examine corporate records.

It's important to note that the legal issues are local to where your customer resides. You have to understand the laws and make sure that personally identifiable data and some financial records are kept local if required by the law.

This could be an issue as cloud computing systems become more distributed. Indeed, while the primary facility may be in-country, the failover site, or perhaps the site used when the primary site is under maintenance, could be across the border and, thus, noncompliant.

Disater Plan Manual - CIO and CSO conflict

rss@e-janco.com — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 17:09:02 -0600

When the task of disaster recovery planning (DRP) is dropped in the laps of information security managers and IT staff, DRP becomes a security problem. If the disaster plan is handed off to an organization's information security officer or IT director with little or no support, the result is usually either a set of a few policies and procedures without a solid foundation in risk assessment, or a long-winded document that overreaches and focuses on the wrong issues.

When this happens, the disaster recovery plan often does more harm than good. Thinking that disaster recovery is assured by a novice's tape backup rotation plan and off-site storage in a cabinet down the hall could lead to overconfidence, false statements during audits or contract negotiations, or even encourage risky data, network, and service management behavior. Mixing up a data, recovery procedure for a full-blown plan or inflated data-focused plan into a management policy and standards is dangerous stuff for the livelihood of a business.

Worse, there is the possibility that minimal action on the part of the CIO and IT to protect information assets will cause senior management to cool its support for enterprise risk management, disaster recovery and business continuity. Organizations making the transition from small to medium size occasionally check disaster recovery off the list when they have information asset-preservation policies, and neglect to scale up disaster response decisions and processes where they concern human safety.

A network outage is a disaster

rss@e-janco.com — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 16:34:03 -0600

A network outage is a business interuption and a disaster for most enterprise. The disaster recovery planning process needs to consider this as one of the most likely events to occur.

As businesses rely more heavily on the internet to transact business and link together branch offices, remote workers, customers and business partners, the WAN connection becomes more important than ever. A single pipe may be a company's only link to the outside world. If this pipe goes down, crucial networking functions come to a crashing halt. Although most business lines are reliable, outages are not very common. A software company that has over 25 branch offices, each with a T-1, in several 3^rd world locations has frequent outages. About once a month, they have a T-1 outage in one of the offices, lasting from 4 to 20 hours. During that time, that remote office is effectively cut-off. Without the WAN line, you cannot make phone calls, get e-mails or do any kind of electronic transaction. They are unable to communicate with the outside world and effectively dead in the water.

A disaster occurs -- now what?

rss@e-janco.com — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 17:00:13 -0600

A disaster or business interruption occurs, what do you do? A quick roadmap to follow is:

Do not panic and remain calm! When a disaster or business interruption occurs the first priority number is to ensure the safety of the employees.
Evaluate the disaster! Determine the impact on your personnel and enterprise operations, this evaluation the event is critical in making the decision to activate the disaster recovery business continuity procedures.
Communicate with everyone that can be impacted! Communicate with your team, managers, affiliates, and vendors frequently. Even if there is no status to report, do not leave anyone guessing or letting them draw their own conclusions.
Know the disaster recovery business continuity plan! Testing the Business Continuity Plan regularly helps everyone in becoming familiar with what will happen and how it will be done.
Be decisive! Once you have determined the level of disaster and everyone is safe to operate, it is time to make the decision if you need to implement the business continuity procedures or if the downtime for recovery acceptable.
Start the process! Start with recovering the most business critical systems first to restore business operations to a functional level. There should not be any question, which order which applications need to be restored first.
Lock down all backups and critical documentation! The first step to the recovery is having a set of data to recover from. This could be anything from archived tape, local disk copy, and a co-location or disaster recovery data center.
Use multiple solution paths! Assume that nothing will work and have alternatives in place
Reactivate normal operations! Once the systems are operational, the disaster is over and systems are repaired it is time to move the workloads back to where they were originally.

Backup and Backup Retention Policy Key to DRP

rss@e-janco.com — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 15:36:46 -0600

With companies storing data for longer periods of time to meet compliance regulations and business best practices, the inherent risk of a data breach is growing significantly. When it comes to data management, today's enterprises must balance a number of divergent requirements that often compete for priority. Many organizations routinely store backup tapes off site to meet operational requirements and business continuity objectives. However, backup tapes can easily be lost during transport, and remote storage facilities may lack adequate security. Backup and archival solutions are designed only to preserve data; they don't protect against unauthorized access. Only data encryption can effectively safeguard sensitive data by rendering it unreadable without access to the encryption key.

Disasters can occur any where at any time

rss@e-janco.com — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 17:29:45 -0600

Disasters are unpredictable by nature and can strike anywhere at anytime with little or no warning. Recovering from one is expensive and time consuming, particularly for those who have not taken the time to think ahead and prepare for such possibilities.

Disaster Planning - Janco has found that 80% of all enterprises that do not have a disaster recovery / business continuity plan in place before a disaster occurs never reopen. However, when disaster strikes, those who have prepared and made recovery plans survive with comparatively minimal loss and/or disruption of productivity.

Disasters can take several different forms. Some primarily impact individuals -- e.g., hard drive meltdowns -- while others have a larger, collective impact. Disasters can occur such as power outages, floods, fires, storms, equipment failure, sabotage, terrorism, or even epidemic illness. Each of these can at the very least cause short-term disruptions in normal business operation. But recovering from the impact of many of the aforementioned disasters can take much longer, especially if organizations have not made preparations in advance.

Most of us recognize that these potential problems as possibilities. Unfortunately the randomness of some of these disasters lulls some organizations into a sense of false security-"that's not likely to happen here." However, if proper preparations have been made, the disaster recovery process does not have to be exceedingly stressful. Instead the process can be streamlined, but this facilitation of recovery will only happen where preparations have been made. Organizations that take the time to implement disaster recovery plans ahead of time often ride out catastrophes with minimal or no loss of data, hardware, or business revenue. This in turn allows them to maintain the faith and confidence of their customers and investors.

Disaster Recovery Planning is the factor that makes the critical difference between the organizations that can successfully manage crises with minimal cost and effort and maximum speed, and those that are left picking up the pieces for untold lengths of time and at whatever cost providers decide to charge; organizations forced to make decision out of desperation.

Microsoft sites crash

rss@e-janco.com — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 18:04:09 -0600

Ongoing problems with a Microsoft Corp. Web site handling software licenses have left some business customers unable to activate and use their Microsoft apps for more than a month.

Microsoft first took down its Volume Licensing Service Center for maintenance in early December, after attempts to merge multiple licensing sites into a single, more secure site backfired for some users.

Those affected include businesses purchasing Microsoft software, or resellers and integrators handling newly-purchased software for business customers. Problems they have reported via Twitter include users losing access to paid-for software licenses; an inability to login to the VLSC site and fix this for one month or more; and six-hour waits on Microsoft telephone support trying to fix their accounts;

One user said that Microsoft, unable to grant him access to his account and license activation keys, was forced to physically mail him replacement software.

Disaster Pllanning tool chosen by 3,000 plus enterprises

rss@e-janco.com — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 23:37:57 -0600

Just because your company is not a major corporation with hundreds of offices and thousands of employees does not mean your are not under the same pressures to maintain access to critical information in order to run your business and remain competitive. But buying the same complex and expensive solutions as the major players in your industry can be cost-prohibitive -- and unnecessary. You feel the same pressures to secure your data as a massive corporation does, but without the massive budget.

The disaster planning template is the way to go. Over 3,000 enterprises world wide have chosen it as the tool of choice.

Tape Backups Difficult to Coordinate

rss@e-janco.com — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 15:58:19 -0600

According to the U.S. Labor Department, more than 40 percent of all companies that experience a disaster never reopen - and more than 25 percent of those that do reopen after a disaster occurs will close down for good within two years.

Yet many midsized companies find it difficult to regularly and effectively back up data. The traditional tape backup process is manual and time consuming: data is preserved by taking "snapshots" of server activity, which are then placed on tape for archiving. To make matters more complicated, effective manual backups typically become more difficult to achieve as data spreads across multiple systems and servers.

The Difference Between Disaster Recovery Planning and Business Continuity Planning Defined

rss@e-janco.com — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:15:37 -0600

Disaster Recovery Planning (DRP) is the process by which you resume business after a disruptive event. This typically means that you can get the enterprise computers, networks, and data base operational. The event might be something huge-like an earthquake or the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center-or something small, like malfunctioning software caused by a computer virus.

Given the human tendency to look on the bright side, many business executives are prone to ignoring "disaster recovery" because disaster seems an unlikely event. However Janco has found that over one third of all enterprises have had to activate their Disaster Plans in the last few years.

Business Continuity Planning (BCP) suggests a more comprehensive approach to making sure you can keep the enterprise going and meet it business objectives. This goes beyond the enterprise computers, networks and data bases. However, the two terms are married under the acronym DR/BC or DRP/BCP. At any rate, Disaster Recovery Planning and/or Business Continuity Planning facilitate how a company will keep functioning after a disruptive event until its normal facilities are restored.

Most data disasters are caused by human error

rss@e-janco.com — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:49:28 -0600

CIOs should be aware of the fact that human error is often the main factor responsible for data disasters. Janco Associates now attribute the increase in human error incidents to complex storage systems such as multiple RAID systems on the same computer coupled with older equipment, reduced budgets, lower staffing levels, and poorly trained IT staff.

With advanced storage options such as virtualization and cloud computing offering corporations storage optimization, human processes are still conrolling factors as individuals must direct the technology as to how to operate. The complexity of these systems require a steep learning curve, and with reported IT spending at a low (down 6.9 percent in 2009 according to some research firms.), human error is increasingly more common.

Typical human caused data disaster are:

Pulling the wrong drive. While trying to replace a failed disk in a RAID array, a healthy disk is accidently removed.
Reformatting a disk. During a server migration, the wrong SAN LUN is accidently reformatted.
Restoring corrupt/old backup data. A server containing a business-critical database is deleted by mistake and is restored with a corrupt or incomplete backup prior to realizing the backup is not sound.
Rebuilding a bad array. Following a multiple drive failure in a RAID array, an attempt to force the failed drives back online and rebuild the configuration is made, whereby damaging or corrupting the data on the array.
Deleting data. Files, volumes, virtual machines or a SAN LUN is deleted by accident and there is no backup or the backup is old or corrupt.

H1N1 spurs demand for disaster recovery and business continuity tools

rss@e-janco.com — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:55:19 -0600

The H1N1 pandemic is pushing companies to upgrade their secure remote access capabilities in order to enable more employees to work out of their homes and other remote locations in an emergency.

Vendors of remote access technologies are reporting an unexpected increase in demand for their products over the past several months as a result of H1N1-related concerns.

"Companies are really looking for is the ability to provide secure, remote access to more of their employees," said Victor Janulaitis, CEO Janco Associates, a provider of Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Tools. "Most companies have extensive mobile workforces. What they are doing is planning for an ever increaseing scale," he said.

According to data collected by Janco, much of the increased interest has come from larger enterprises. These are the enterprises that seem to be more aware of the need for planning.

Security policies and procedures such as those offered by Janc provide teleworkers with rules on how to secure access to enterprise applications from any location, using a broad range of devices. They enable IT administrators to enforce security and information usage policies.

Business continuity planning for a Pandemic

rss@e-janco.com — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 01:16:35 -0600

Larger corporations typically can continue business as usual even while many employees are out sick in a Pandemic. However Business Continuity Planning at small firms rely heavily on key individuals and find themselves nearly incapacitated if several of those key people get sick, must stay home with sick children, or are in areas put under quarantine.

Phone Trees

At a minimum, small business owners should update employees' contact information to include current home phone numbers and addresses, e-mail addresses, and cell phone numbers. Some employers establish phone trees so they can efficiently contact all their employees to check on and alert them during an emergency.

Another vital component to a business continuity plan is to collect contact information, including cell phone numbers, for their suppliers, vendors, and key customers. Keep this information in print and online, and store copies off-site in case you can't get into your office.

A host of legal and medical questions may arise for small business owners if swine flu roars back with a vengeance this fall.

Imagine you run a small business like a day-care center, where vulnerable children congregate and colds and flu are prevalent. Do you close and send your entire staff and all children home at the first sign of any flu? Do you send home only sick children and sick staff? When? When do you reopen or allow them to return? What information and medical clearance would you need to send staff or children home, allow them to return, close, or reopen the center? These are not easy questions.

Backup Staff

Janco recommends that companies prepare for operational disruptions by doing employee cross training or lining up backup staff now. Employers should review and enhance existing emergency disaster plans to ensure business continuity. Employers that are just getting started should develop a plan that includes pandemic preparedness, and review it and conduct drills regularly. A checklist for flu policy is posted at the government's flu awareness Web site.

Aside from preparing and practicing for pandemic, small business owners may want to check with their attorneys for advice on unusual situations -- What do you do with employees who are medically vulnerable to the flu or those with young children or elderly relatives at home? Do you send them home? When and for how long? With pay?

Paid Sick Leave?

The federal Family Medical Leave Act provides eligible employees with up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for themselves or sick family members. Generally, FMLA regulations do not cover flu absences unless complications arise, but courts recently have interpreted the FMLA to mandate leave for the flu and other viral infections.

However, the federal law does not cover firms with fewer than 50 employees. Small employers usually do not have to provide sick leave, so it is a surprise to many employees that they are not entitled to any sick leave, much less any paid sick leave.

Another question for your human resources manager and/or attorney is what communications responsibility you have as a business owner if one of your employees is diagnosed with swine flu. There are health confidentiality and privacy issues for employees, so employers should not disclose personal health information. But employers do not want a modern day Typhoid Mary spreading swine flu at work. If there is an employee with confirmed swine flu, some employers are alerting employees that there may be swine flu exposure at work without identifying the involved employee.

You might need to think about giving an infected person's immediate co-workers enhanced sick leave to protect themselves or family members, particularly if they have particular medical vulnerability to the illness, he says. Some employers bring in cleaning crews to disinfect an office where swine flu has been found. Providing hand disinfectant for employees is not a bad idea.

Cloud Recovery Not Easy - Disaster Recovery Not Under User Control

rss@e-janco.com — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 12:02:31 -0600

Microsoft officials still have not provided many details about what caused the outage, other than to say it was a core system failure. The failure is unrelated to Microsoft's cloud infrastructure and/or Microsoft's Azure datacenters, as the company has continued to run the Sidekick back-end on the same infrastructure it has been running on before Microsoft acquired the company in 2008.

The Microsoft/Danger team apologized for the amount of time they are taking to restore contacts, photos, e-mail and other Sidekick services to which users lost access at the start of the month. The team said they were taking their time "to make sure we are doing everything possible to maintain the integrity of your data."

The team still is not committing to an exact recovery timetable, but is saying restoration should begin this week. Microsoft said, "We continue to make steady progress, and we hope to be able to begin restoring personal contacts for affected users this week, with the remainder of the content (photographs, notes, to-do-lists, marketplace data, and high scores) shortly thereafter."

After telling users that they likely had lost all of their personal data, the Microsoft/Danger team then said they expected to be able to recover some of their data. Mid-weeklast week, they said they expected to recover "most if not all" of the missing user data.

What is a Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Plan

Disaster recovery and business continuity planning are processes that help organizations prepare for disruptive events - whether those event might include a hurricane or simply a power outage caused by a backhoe in the parking lot. The CIO's involvement in this process can range from overseeing the plan, to providing input and support, to putting the plan into action during an emergency.

Cloud is not as secure as many thought

rss@e-janco.com — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 10:28:44 -0600

T-Mobile and Microsoft Sidekick is a set of exterior shells (for mobile phones) that can be personalized and provides the capability to record, play and share videos: record videos using the camera; receive video attachments from e-mail, picture messaging, or side load videos to the microSD card; play video using the built-in media player; share videos via e-mail, Bluetooth or picture messaging.

Sidekick failed and lost user data. On the face of it, there are some obvious lessons to be learned from the Sidekick snafu, even as Microsoft Corp. reported today that most of the data that was missing will be recovered from servers at its Danger Inc. subsidiary.

The lessons learned are:

Back up your mobile phone's critical data independently - on a laptop, a desktop or a thumb drive.
Raise questions about cloud computing and related services.
Find out how your mobile device stores data, and make sure you understand it.

The Sidekick incident should serve as a reminder to users to back up critical data. You cannot rely on cloud services to be 100% available all the time.

Not only is a backup of critical data imperative, users need to have a way to retrieve the backed-up data. CIOs need to think about the value of the data and what happens if the service is not available. There are many Internet-based services that can be a second backup version to the original backup, such as Plaxo. Having the second one drastically reduces the odds of total loss.

At larger companies, data backups are commonplace and often include information contained on wireless phones as well as desktop computers, analysts said. The issue becomes more difficult when IT shops trust users who put critical company data on personally-owned wireless phones that aren't backed up.

Despite urging users to back up critical data, Staten joined three other analysts in remaining faithful to the mobile phone industry's strong push for cloud computing services, noting that the Sidekick case was relatively isolated.

Nearly every major smartphone provider is working on some version of cloud computing to back up data from smartphones and other cell phones. All those services could be vulnerable to data loss, and the Sidekick example is likely to prompt a broad re-examination of internal server backup procedures.

One added is risk is that backend services open enterprisees up to having data potentially lost, stolen or replicated somewhere that enterprises do not have knowledge of.

Imagine if this happened across an entire carrier's servers. For Verizon Wireless that could be 90 million people. Everybody should think twice if these services could really save your data up in the cloud.

Improve your RTO and RPO

rss@e-janco.com — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:16:00 -0600

How long can your Enterprise afford to be without your data? With an accelerated disaster recovery program, you never have to answer this question. Download this outline learn how the Janco Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Template can reduce RPOs and RTOs even more.

Disaster Recovery Guide
Business Continuity Planning

ISO 27001, ISO 27002, ISO 17799, Sarbanes-Oxley, and HIPAA Compliant

What is Disaster Recovery and how does the Disaster Recovery Planning Template help?

This DRP Template can be used for any sized enterprise.

The template and supporting material have been updated to be Sarbanes-Oxley compliant. The complete package includes:

Disaster Recovery Planning and Business Continuity Template
Business and IT Impact Analysis Questionnaire
Work Plan
Disaster Recovery / Business Continuity Audit Program

With lost data being a competitive liability, there is no room for downtime in today's business world.

Huge Waves - Office Buildings and Businesses Demolished

rss@e-janco.com — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 09:52:12 -0600

A series of tsunamis smashed into the Pacific island nations of American and Western Samoa killing possibly more than 100 people, some washed out to sea, destroying office buildings and homes, and injuring hundreds. Television images showed offices and homes ripped apart, cars submerged in the sea or lodged in trees and large fishing boats hurled ashore by the waves generated by a 8.0 magnitude quake southwest of American Samoa.

A second 7.9 magnitude earthquake hit the Indonesian island of Sumatra late.

Disaster officials said the toll may reach 100 as rescuers search for bodies in flattened villages along the southern shore of the island of Upolu. Twenty villages on Upolu's south side were reportedly destroyed, including Lepa, the home of Samoa's prime minister. The area is also the main tourist area, and the waves destroyed some resorts. In neighboring American Samoa at least 24 people were killed and 50 injured with the southern portion of the main Tutuila island "devastated". The death toll there may also rise, said officials.

Huge Waves, Buildings Demolished

The waves that hit Pago Pago village were about 20 feet high. Some buildings were demolished by the waves, you know, there are no buildings anymore except the foundation. In addition, the island of Tonga was hit by a 13-foot wave on its northern coast. Tongan officials confirmed seven people were killed, while three were missing late on Wednesday.

Small tsunamis also reached New Zealand, Hawaii, and Japan.

Some areas have been flattened and the tsunami brought a lot of sand onshore. The Samoan resort Sea Breeze on the Southside of Upolu was destroyed when the waves hit it. The restaurant just floated out to sea complete, until it was smashed up in the water.

Network Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity CIO's Concern

rss@e-janco.com — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 11:20:16 -0600

In addition to the lack of a consolidated disaster recovery / business continuity plan for the network management system, network operations are plagued by other problems:

Network recovery plans are impacted by unanticipated traffic growth, configuration issues; link overloads due to traffic rerouted around failed network elements, and more.
Changes may lead to undocumented side effects, so understanding the impact of changes before making them is essential for reliable network operations.
The monotonous work of making simple changes to hundreds or thousands of devices or objects is error prone and often difficult to reproduce in the recovery mode.

To add to the pressure, network operations teams are expected to run larger networks that have become many times more important to the business, and to do so with fewer staff members. These conditions exacerbate the problems associated with disparate disaster recovery and business continuity plans.

State of Texas disaster recovery plan in jeopardy

rss@e-janco.com — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 11:16:06 -0600

Disaster planning for the State of Texas has been put in jeopardy with the delay in the signing of contracts for seven of the state’s agencies. The 7-year contract, signed in 2007, calls for data-center operations for 27 separate state agencies to be consolidated into two new facilities with the objectives being enhanced security and lower costs, according to the Austin American-Statesman.

In addition, high-profile data breaches involving state systems last year led to the suspension of the data-center consolidation project until IBM could prove to the state that necessary security measures were in place. As a result, seven of the state's 27 agencies have still not signed off on IBM's proposed plan for managing data backup, which could lead to additional delays.

Adding to IBM's challenge on this project are the results of a survey of the IT directors for the state agencies: 88% said they are dissatisfied with the services IBM has been providing.

Backup is the primary Disaster Plan for Many SMBs

rss@e-janco.com — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 09:19:44 -0600

Mid-sized businesses (SMB) have long struggled to protect their IT systems. Many firms are inadequately protected and mistakenly think that a disaster is rare and will not happen to them anytime soon. Experience shows there is a lot of confusion and misunderstanding regarding what disaster recovery encompasses and how to implement it effectively.

SMBs must work with limited finances infrastructure and human resources. Robust disaster recovery used to be affordable and manageable only by large enterprises. SMBs rely more on backup than on a formal disaster recovery plan. As businesses' reliance on IT has grown, backup has increasingly shown its weaknesses. However, the introduction and maturation of several key technologies, such as virtualization, have brought affordable and easily implementable DRP to small and mid-sized companies. SMBs do not always equate virtualization with DR because awareness of the many virtualization applications is just starting to grow.

Organizations that ensure survival following a disaster understand the basics of creating a good plan; however, there are many obstacles and pitfalls that they can easily avoid. Based on working with thousands of customers, Janco Associates has developed a Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Template that includes everything that you need to create a custom Disaster Plan.

You can download a full copy of the table of contents by going to http://www.e-janco.com/Register_drp.asp.

Disaster Plan Common Failures

rss@e-janco.com — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 03:41:27 -0600

Disaster Recovery Business Continuity - Common Failures

Most common mistakes made in Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Planning are eliminated by implementing the Janco Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Template. Problems that are avoided are:

Failure to identify every potential event that can jeopardize the infrastructure and data that your enterprise depends
Failure to cross-train personnel in disaster recovery and business continuity
Failure to create a communication processes which will work when your communication infrastructure is lost
Failure to have adequate backup power
Failure to know which resources need to be restored first
Failure to have adequate physical documentation of your Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity plan
Failure to validate the adequacy of your back ups
Failure to test your Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity plan
Failure to have passwords available to the Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity team
Failure to keep your Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity plan up to date

Minimun and Standard Power Protection for Workstations for DRP and BCP

rss@e-janco.com — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 12:35:22 -0600

Personal computers and remote servers often are damaged by subtle anomalies that users never see, such as sags, surges, spikes, brownouts, line noise, frequency variation, switching transients and harmonic distortion. A business on typical utility power is subjected to these hidden power problems every day and complete outages several times a year. Solutions that you should implement for all such equipment include:

Minimum - Surge suppressors address the power surges, but have no effect on the under-voltage and variance conditions that can erode equipment health over time or zap it in an instant.
Standard - Uninterruptible Power Systems (UPSs) protect your IT systems by conditioning incoming power to smooth out the sags and spikes that are all too common on the grid and other primary sources of power Providing ride-through power to cover for sags or short-term outages (30 60 minutes, typically).

Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Scope

rss@e-janco.com — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 12:33:20 -0600

Recognizing the scope of the requirements, Janco suggests that you purchase the Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Template and the do the following:

Conduct a business impact assessment. This involved a crossfunctional team to evaluate the business requirements and tier data based on the importance to our business operations.
Protect data and applications. It was important to back up data frequently to ensure records are kept, so we needed to upgrade
our backup equipment to a faster version to reduce the time it took to complete a backup cycle.
Review power and connectivity options. We needed to add uninterrupted power supplies (UPS) and connectivity for critical servers, network connections and selected personal computers to keep the most essential applications running in case of a power outage.
Document, test and update the disaster preparedness plan. Part of the Janco Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Template plan needs you to include updated configuration diagrams of the hardware, software and network components to be used in the recovery. The plan also needed to include logistical details, such as travel to backup sites and spending authorization for emergency needs.
Consider telecommunications alternatives. Often taken for granted, telecommunications backup involving redundancy and alternatives needed to be in place - and in the case of spot outages, redundancy may be enough. For larger outages, alternative communications vehicles, including wireless phones, wireless data cards and satellite phones, had to be considered.

Testing is Critical to Disaster Recovery Planning

rss@e-janco.com — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 12:05:26 -0600

Importance of testing is critical to the disaster recovery and business continuity planning.

All good disaster recovery and contingency plans start with having a good solid backup of data. Although systems and applications can be reinstalled and reconfigured, data cannot be rebuilt out of thin air. The key to having a good backup is to make sure the data is correct and can be successfully restored. This is not always as easy as it seems. One company had such an issue. Their backup administrator did not correctly follow procedures and when he thought he was doing a backup, he actually was not writing anything. When they tried to restore a database, they found out all the tapes were blank.

Cost of Disaster Recovery Backup Is High For Many Enterprises

rss@e-janco.com — Tue, 19 May 2009 13:54:53 -0600

The need for de-duplication is increasing for many organizations as they gather ever-growing volumes of data. At the same time, they are looking for ways to reduce storage costs, improve efficiencies and provide adequate disaster recovery capabilities. The key benefit is the ability to lessen the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of storage hardware by eliminating redundant blocks of data and then allowing organizations to replicate that data -- if required -- to a second system for offsite storage. That can remove the need for tape. Data de-duplication not only allows companies to reduce the disk space needed for backup and restore, but it can increase performance and reliability while reducing demands for rack space, power and cooling. Further, it can reduce the bandwidth requirements for data transfer by 90 percent or more.

Pandemic Alert Level 5 Requires DRP/BCP Plans be Activated

rss@e-janco.com — Mon, 18 May 2009 15:55:58 -0600

The World Health Organization has raised the pandemic alert over the spread of swine flu to phase 5.

WHO says that based on assessment of all available information and following several expert consultations raised the current level of influenza pandemic alert from phase 4 to 5.

While making the annoucement, WHO stated that all countries should immediately activate their pandemic preparedness plans. At this stage, effective and essential measures include heightened surveillance, early detection and treatment of cases, and infection control in all health facilities.

Disaster Planning for a Pandemic

rss@e-janco.com — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 07:40:37 -0600

In disaster planning when a pandemic occurs the data center exists but people are in separate locations. The Disaster Planning and Business Continuity Planning processes need to make the user and business operating experience as similar as possible so that the work environment is the same in the remote site (often home) as in the office. A key requirement is to increase remote access capabilities in addition before the pandemic occurs the following planning needs to take place:

Define necessary staff levels for critical business processes
Identify who can work remotely and who has to be in the office
Validation of vaccinations for key staff members
Identify the lights out processing issues for computer operations staff
Identify the network and remote access capacity requirements - what percent of workers do you need to be on the system for the enterprise to continue to operate
Train and test of users and IT staffs in how to operate from remote locations Require key employees to work from remote site at least once a month
Validate broadband capacity to remote sites (home users)
Have copies of disaster plan available in remote site
Put in place process for the synchronization of OS system patches and VPN updates - if the workstations are not used frequently disable the auto update features for security updates but maintain a process to see that they workstations are up-to-date.
Define specific requirements for security and PCI-DSS when the disaster plan is activated for a pandemic.
Define change management and version control processes to be used and how they will be controlled during the pandemic.

How to get started with a Disaster Planning process

rss@e-janco.com — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 08:17:07 -0600

Getting started with a disaster recovery / business continuity plan may seem daunting, but is not. The process starts by addressing the needs of the business - not the IT department.

Access the enterprise's operating environment - Identify critical business functions and then determine which systems, applications and data must be available to keep each function running smoothly.
Conduct an IT business impact analysis - Develop a hierarchy of business functions and processes based on their importance to operations. You will most likely find that, although some systems need to be up and running as soon as possible after a disaster, other systems can wait.
Establish a team with enterprise wide management experience and responsibility - Gather representatives from across the business, from IT to human resources and facilities management. Each member should contribute to both the development of the disaster recovery plan and its execution. Be sure to define their responsibilities and the reporting hierarchy in the event of a disaster and to equip them with mobile technology, so they can make decisions spontaneously.
Develop budgets and funding sources - A disaster recovery plan is only as effective as the resources that are committed to it. Once you have determined what it will require to support your business recovery objectives, you need to identify the tools and procedures needed to meet them. Be specific about the cost of these mechanisms, as well as the financial risk of disaster, so you can build a realistic business case.
Define specific responsibilities and tasks - Spell out tasks, responsibilities and roles - not only to revive systems, but also to provide access to users and enable operations to continue even under compromised circumstances.
Re-evaluate what has been created and keep it up to date - Test it, reexamine it and update it regularly - once a year, twice a year or even quarterly. Also, remember that there are continuing advancements in disaster recovery technology. Keep revisiting your options to take advantage of faster, more-cost-effective solutions.

Google Designs its Servers With DRP and BCP in Mind

rss@e-janco.com — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 16:18:24 -0600

Most companies buy servers from the likes of Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, or Sun Microsystems. But Google, which has hundreds of thousands of servers and considers running them part of its core expertise, designs and builds its own. Google has designed its own servers and each server has its own 12-volt battery to supply power if there's a problem with the main source of electricity. Since 2005 Google's data centers have been composed of standard shipping containers--each with 1,160 servers and a power consumption that can reach 250 kilowatts.

Disaster Recovery Business Continuity in a Mixed Vendor Environment

rss@e-janco.com — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 22:30:54 -0600

How do you create a unified Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Plan when you IT services are outsourced to multiple vendors and some of their facilities are in the same geographical area? Some vendors are now starting to offer services that are designed to help enterprises get a converged view with which to manage and monitor their entire IT infrastructures, regardless of whether services are delivered by in-house resources or by third-party service providers.

These service providers recognize that enterprises are moving services to specialty vendors such as security providers, network providers or computing services providers, rather than to a single services provider.

Facebook Disk Failure Results in Lost Data

rss@e-janco.com — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 20:40:41 -0600

Popular social networking site Facebook.com admitted on a blog post today that over the weekend, a hard drive failure led to the temporary loss of 10% to 15% of its users stored photographs.

According to the company, several drives failed at once during a routine upgrade Friday night.

"You may have noticed in the past day that some photos aren't appearing or are displaying a 'question mark' graphic when you go to view them. We're trying to fully understand what happened, since simultaneous hardware failures like this are rare," a Facebook engineer, stated in his blog.

Facebook said its users' photos are safe because it stores multiple copies of the data for disaster recovery and business continuity purposes, and it is working to make the photos affected by the system failure available again as soon as possible.

Portable Disk Backup Device Released

rss@e-janco.com — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 17:46:59 -0600

A hard disk drive duplicator has been released. The second generation device is a compact and portable cloning solution with blazing cloning speeds approaching 6GB/min! A full color touch screen provides an easy to use interface, and support for SATA/IDE/USB/Firewire 1394B makes the device an extremely versatile duplicator.

The hand-held unit provides the convenience of on-site as well as "on the bench" cloning. Novice users will appreciate the "wizard" function that steps them through key cloning operations. Advanced software including Clever Copy, Selective Partitions and Master Manager is included with the device. The compact, feature-rich cloning device also features support for verification of the cloned drive using an MD5 signature of target drive. The SuperSonix device is Windows Vista compatible and supports e-SATA and microSATA drives (with optional cables) as well as solid state drives.

Disaster and Business Continuity Preparedness

rss@e-janco.com — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 06:49:17 -0600

IT managers must make disaster planning a top priority if they are to prevent data loss and maintain business continuity in times of crisis. Unfortunately, day-to-day operations too often steal the time that IT professionals should otherwise devote to critical disaster planning and business continuity efforts. Enterprises cannot prepare for yesterday's disaster today. That is why you need Janco's Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Template.

This comprehensive disaster and business continuity preparedness template includes:

Plan Introduction
Business Impact Analysis - including a sample impact matrix
DRP Organization Responsibilities pre and post disaster - drp checklist
Backup Strategy for Data Centers, Departmental File Servers, Wireless Network servers, Data at Outsourced Sites, Desktops (In office and "at home"), Laptops and PDA's.
Recovery Strategy including approach, escalation plan process and decision points
Disaster Recovery Procedures in a check list format
Plan Administration Process
Technical Appendix including definition of necessary phone numbers and contact points
Job Description for Disaster Recovery Manager (3 pages long) - entire disaster recovery team job descriptions are available.
Work Plan to modify and implement the template. Included is a list of deliverables for each task. (Risk Assessment and Vulnerability Assessment)

Disaster business continuity lessons learned

rss@e-janco.com — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 16:19:06 -0600

Most disasters that affect enterprises are not as great as the terrorist attack of 911 or Katrina. However, enterprises need to plan for event of that magnitude. Plans has have to take in account the loss of expertise and skills of workers killed in the disaster, businesses lost physical assets, data and the information technology to continue operating.

Preparing for disaster is nothing new. Smaller companies may not have the money to safeguard all their crucial systems. The risks they face are that 80% of companies that do have a disaster recovery / business continuity plan in place never either open their doors after the disaster or go out of business within 18 months.

Lessons that enterprises that have gone through a disaster and survived are:

There never is enough testing
The disaster and business continuity plan is not quite up to date
Not all of the backups that were taken worked
Key data was lost because the right backup was not made
Too few people know what the disaster and business continuity processes are

Do You Have Security Implemented for Your Disaster Plan

rss@e-janco.com — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 13:02:20 -0600

During the execution of your Disaster Recovery / Busniess Continuity plan is your company's information protected by the security policy and solutions you have in place now? Are you in full compliance with SOX, GLBA and HIPAA regulations, while also complying with your state's information security laws? Federal and state rules enforcing the electronic security of personal information are becoming stricter and more complicated. As a result, companies are reexamining the way they deal with sensitive information to avoid the lawsuits, fines and loss of business reputation associated with a security breach.

Still, despite business's efforts to step up their security protocols, in 2007:

More than 79 million personal electronic records containing data such as Social Security numbers and credit-card numbers were compromised in the U.S.
This was nearly four times the number reported in 2006. (Source: New State Laws Enforcing Encryption, MessageLabs Whitepaper, Nov. 2008)

Are You Prepared for a Disaster?

rss@e-janco.com — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 15:26:48 -0600

According to an AT&T Survey of 100 Chicago firms (revenues <$10M), 81 have DR plans, but only 43% have fully tested their plans within the last 12 months and 12% admitted they have never tested their business continuity plans.

Next to personnel, data is your most irreplaceable asset. Networks, application hosting platforms, and end user computing environments can be replaced quickly. However, without your customer lists, product catalogs, inventory, financial records, and other operations data your business cannot recover.

Email Failure is a Disaster

rss@e-janco.com — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 15:17:00 -0600

In today's rapidly changing business environment, Information Technology outages can be devastating. In the new Democratic administration, the email system failed for a 36 hour period. This resulted in the implementation of their primary backup system being implemented - they went back to paper.

Regardless of the cause - hurricane, fire, accident, hacker attack, or even terrorist attack - production downtime is not only costly, but in some cases causes enterprise to fail and go out of business. With a mobile workforce, global customers wanting to do business around the clock, and continually greater dependence on technology, companies need to not only protect data, but continue business operations virtually uninterrupted. The cost of downtime, depending on your industry, can be from thousands to millions of dollars per hour - due not only to disaster recovery expenses, but also to lost sales, customer defection, and lack of productivity. Add to that a damaged reputation in the marketplace and diminished shareholder confidence, and the cost of downtime can be staggering.

However, organizations that can continue business operations through any outage, large or small, can gain competitive advantage - and sometimes even take market share from competitors.

Data Needs to be Protected When a DRP is Activated

rss@e-janco.com — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 15:41:15 -0600

Information is one of a company's strategic resources. The company owns valuable proprietary processes, sensitive customer information, private vendor lists, and strategic goals that have great value - and may be attractive targets for competitors or thieves. In addition when a a disaster recovery and business continuity plan is activated, data can be inadvertently exposed and or lost.

In many instances, companies have a legal obligation to protect that data. Data also has to be protected from accidental (or intentional) corruption, and IT professionals must ensure that company data is accessible or deliverable when necessary.

As a result, companies spend a significant portion of their IT budget on managing and protecting information. Sometimes business interests collide. More security sometimes means less productivity, more cost and less return on business investment. A company's data can be lost or stolen if network users do not follow basic security procedures. Lost data can mean:

Lost time

Lost money

Lost opportunities

A lost competitive edge

A crippling legal liability and a serious public relations problem, if the company loses customer or client data

Broadband to be Expanded by the Feds

rss@e-janco.com — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 15:07:45 -0600

Disaster recovery and business continuity planning could be favorably impacted by the economic stimulus package. There are calls to invest between to $30 billion to $100 billion to expand broadband coverage within the United States.

Educause, an advocacy group focused on IT use in higher education, called for a $100 billion broadband program in a policy paper (download PDF).
The Obama transition team members are pushing for a broadband funding package that is about $30 billion.

With this additional capacity the cost structure for various disaster recovery and business continuity solutions will be significantly altered.

How Should Data Be Backup for Disaster Recovery to Be Successful

rss@e-janco.com — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 13:42:22 -0600

There are two major categories of data replication: 1) Continuous Replication, in which data changes are sent continuously between locations, and 2) Periodic Replication, in which changes are send periodically in batches. While these solutions vary in several performance and operational parameters, the key differences are in what kind of recovery they offer.

Continuous replication offers a single recovery point. Write operations are continuously copied to the remote location, the copy is identical to the current production data. In a physical disaster you lose very little data because the remote copy is current. However, with a virus, corruption, accidental deletion, or malfunction, the corruption is propagated to the remote location immediately. No previous restore point is available, leaving you to recover from backup tapes. This can take days or even weeks, and may result in significant amounts of data loss.
Periodic replication is built on the premise that point-in-time copies, or snapshots, are created and sent regularly - but not continuously - to the remote location. Production performance is not impacted, and distance between sites is unlimited. This method offers multiple recovery points and a catalog from which to choose them. Because there is distance between the production and replication sites, you have protected data on disk that is quickly accessible in case of physical disaster. In addition, should a virus, corruption, accidental deletion, or malfunction occur, you can restore "known good" data from a point in time prior to the disaster. Application recovery is fast, because snapshots provide application data in a clean state.

Backup and Recovery Policy is Requried for an IT Disaster Recovery Plan

rss@e-janco.com — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 16:35:52 -0600

Backup and recovery policy is required a first step in and Information Technology disaster plan. In addition the disaster recovery policy must be reviewed at least annually to assure its relevance. Just as in the development of such a policy, a planning team that consists of upper management, and personnel from information security, information technology, human resources, or other operations should be assembled to review the disaster policy. Roles and responsibilities of the planning team should be as follows:

Perform an initial risk assessment to determine current information systems vulnerabilities.
Perform an initial business impact analysis to document and understand the interdependencies among business processes and determine how the business would be affected by an information systems outage.
Take an inventory of information systems assets such as computer hardware, software, applications, and data.
Identify single points of failure within the information systems infrastructure.
Identify critical applications, systems, and data.
Prioritize key business functions.

Creating a Disaster Plan For Your Remote Offices

rss@e-janco.com — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 14:01:43 -0600

When remote offices are operational then Disaster Planning and Contingency Planning need to take them into consideration. The Janco Disaster Recovery / Business Continuity Plan Template has specific section dedicated to this. It includes everything needed:

Work Plan - The first step is to select the group of people who will form your disaster recovery / contingency planning committee. Include high-level managers, consider representatives from all the departments within your business, and, if possible, include a human resources representative as well.
Current contact list with multiple methods of contact - Not only should you keep a list of the names of all employees, but that contact list should include alternate ways that people can communicate with each other. Include home phone numbers, pager numbers, non-work e-mail addresses, and cell phone numbers. Create a formal phone tree that can be activated should you need to get in touch with your employees quickly.
Organizational Succession Plan - What if several members of your management team were in an accident and couldn' t perform their regular responsibilities? What if key members of your company simply couldn' t be contacted for a period of time when you need to make some critical decisions? To prepare for this kind of circumstance, you need to consider a clear chain of command and authority. If key personnel are missing, who' s in charge? Who makes decisions?
DRP/BCP Organizational Chart - Have a single decision-maker. That person needs to know the steps to take in a crisis, and how to reach all employees and other essential contacts (clients, customers, etc). And employees need to know who to take direction from in the chaos that frequently follows a disaster.
Physical work space alternatives - If something happened to your offices, what would you do? Can employees work out of their homes? Is there another company that would share their facilities with you temporarily until you can rent or buy space at a new location?
Risks and vulnerabilities - Make a checklist. Do you live in tornado alley? Put tornado damage on that list. Do you work in an office with no alarm system? Put building security on the list. Might layoffs occur sometime in the future? Add workplace violence. What if the phones get disconnected? What if your key supplier can' t get shipments to you?
Backup your data - Most people have thought about backing up their computer data. Where are your important papers and files - both print and electronic? If your office computers or servers are destroyed, you' d better have your data recently backed up off site.

Backup Strategies for Disaster Recovery Plans

rss@e-janco.com — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 10:47:09 -0600

Here is a set of common disaster recovery techniques for backup and data recovery:

Bulk copy with CIFS, NFS and FTP - For many scenarios, backup and recovery is no more complicated than scripted file copies. However, these protocols are notorious under-performers when it comes to WANs even on Quality of Service (QoS) guaranteed MPLS links. If they are even copied at all; the combination of byte caching and object caching means that only the changed parts of files need cross the wire. For most bulk transfers a 10x increase in performance is common.
Differential Backup applications - These applications keep track of file changes and only pass changes between locations. However, they, too, can be dramatically compressed using byte caching technology and are subject to the same bandwidth contention issues of any other application if a traffic control solution like MACH5 is not in place. Although some use proprietary protocols for transmission, those that use the underlying operating system benefit from protocol optimization. For most backup applications, a 3x performance increase is common.
Database Replication using native SQL replication - Oracle replication and Microsoft DTS use complex SQL statements to automate data transfer. Byte caching and compression removes the inherent redundancy of this data, while user-aware bandwidth management can separate database use from database backup and allocate bandwidth accordingly. For most SQL automated transfers, a 3x performance increase is common.
Database Replication using log shipping - Once the database files are dropped to flat files, they are usually transported as part of a bulk copy. These files are highly redundant, and byte caching and compression can improve their transfer dramatically. Further enhancements from optimizing the underlying transport protocols help as well. For log shipping, a 10x performance increase is common.
Data Replication using web services as part of a Service Oriented Architecture - As SOA gains popularity, transporting data from different parts of the organization as XML over HTTP and HTTPS will become more common. Use internal and external SSL encrypted Web services.

Budgeting Critical for Disaster and Business Continuity Planning

rss@e-janco.com — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 04:40:54 -0600

Once the risk assessment (see Threat Vulnerability Assessment - Sarbanes Oxley Compliance Tool - http://www.e-janco.com/threat.htm) is complete determine what can be done to minimize the risk and what the cost to do that will be. How does a company minimize its

exposure to the threat? How does the company minimize the impact disaster event to the business? For example, our small distribution company could employ an emergency power supply to mitigate its power outage threat and have all its data backed (see Backup and Backup Retention Policy - http://www.e-janco.com/backuppolicy.html), which are stored at a remote site when the hurricane occurs. The more preventative measures you establish upfront the better. Janco Associates say, "Money spent in preparation and testing are worth more than dollars spent in recovery."

The results of risk assessment should be a comprehensive list of possible threats, each with its corresponding solution and cost. The disaster and business continuity planner must present all of these threats to the business operations management, so they can make informed decisions regarding the disaster recovery budget. The disaster and business continuity planner needs to communicate the risks the business faces from disasters. Business operations can fail to budget funds but they must do so knowing what risk they face and accept in doing so.

A good place to begin is by presenting the cost of downtime to the business. How long can your business afford to be without its computer systems should one of your threats occur?

Ultimately, the business operations unit decides which threats the business can tolerate. When developing a DRP (see Disaster Recovery Plan Template Business Continuity - http://www.e-janco.com/DisasterPlanning.htm), disaster and business continuity planners are shooting in the dark without those business indications. Both the disaster and business continuity planner and the business units must agree on which data and applications are most critical to the business and need to be recovered most quickly in a disaster. The management of our small distribution company, for example, may decide they can budget only for the emergency generators and the company will have to assume the risk of an minor hurricane.

Disaster recovery budgets vary from company to company but they typically run between 3% to 15% percent of the overall IT budget. Companies for which system availability is crucial usually are on the higher end of the scale, while companies that can function without it are on the lower end. However, these percentages may be too small.

Network Communication Plan Is Part of the Disaster Plan

rss@e-janco.com — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 09:17:18 -0600

A complete disaster recovery plan needs to include a way to implement an emergency communications network. It needs to be able to be rapidly deployed when a disaster takes place. Such a plan must take into account worst case possibilities regarding the disaster affected area without making any assumptions as to what infrastructure the affected area could provide. The entire network must therefore work independent of the existing networking present at the site, if any.

It should include:

Adequate communication coverage of the affected area.
Mobile communication devices and terminals for disaster recovery personnel with voice and data capabilities.
Group voice communications among on-site personnel with push-to-talk support for voice.
Voice and data communications between disaster recovery personel at a remote location as well as with a 'disaster-management command center'.
Internet service to provide information exchange with the outside world.
A satellite uplink for the network's entire external traffic.

Formal Tested Backup Procedures Critical to Disaster Recovery

rss@e-janco.com — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 12:53:58 -0600

A site-wide disaster can happen at any location, any time. That's way offsite protection is an indispensable aspect of any comprehensive data protection strategy. By employing remote site replication, the organization automatically reaps the benefits of an off-site data protection strategy for each of those remote locations, since the data is replicated from each of those geographically dispersed remote sites to the central office.

Once the data arrives at the central location, the backup and restore policies employed must include an offsite protection strategy for that location. Whether employing direct disk-to tape, disk-to-disk-to-tape, or other methodology, the organization's data cannot be considered truly protected until it is secured at an offsite location.

Elements of an Effective Disaster Prevention System

rss@e-janco.com — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 13:38:00 -0600

Disaster Prevention Systems, based upon 'intelligent' devices dedicated to the task of protecting computer systems from environmental hazards, can aid personnel in the early detection of problems, and enable the automation of protective procedures when persons are unable to respond effectively.

As a first step in responding to an irregular condition, the selected technology should attempt to notify both the people who depend upon the continuance of computing services for the performance of their duties, and those people who may be expected to be capable of dealing with the detected problem. It should maintain a history log, for future reference, of sensed conditions and actions taken. The roster of people to notify should include:

System Users
Site Managers
Security Personnel
Maintenance Personnel
Service Bureaus and Alarm Co. Central Offices
Authorities at Remote Sites

Enterprises Are More Sensitive to Outages

rss@e-janco.com — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 13:34:07 -0600

For most enterprises any downtime means lost productivity, lost revenue, lost customers and lost opportunities. The reasons that this is the case are:

eCommerce Online shopping and the customers experience and downtime is not acceptable.
Retail The critical applications that track point-of-sales data and enable inventory and distribution require applications that are always available.
Health Care With the digitization of medical images and patient records, retaining and ensuring availability of these applications and files is beyond mission-critical. In addition many operating rooms depend on computer technology, service levels can actually be measured in the number of lives.
Manufacturing Competitive pressures drive companies to run as efficiently as possible. Just-in-time manufacturing processes that coordinate shipments from suppliers around the world demand 24 x 7 availability.
Globalization Companies are becoming increasingly dependent on a global economy. Many have established key technology in follow-the-sun modes that require 24 x 7 availability.
Outage visibility Business continuity is now a boardroom-level concern. In many cases, it is the CEO who mandates that the business be fully protected. Even worse than an outage itself is the fallout from negative press, loss of customer confidence and, for public companies, potential impact to stock prices.