UK Pandemic system for disaster fails
The UK Government has rolled out the National Pandemic Flu Service in England today. Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales have decided to opt out of the service as demands in numbers are significantly less than that of England. According to the BBC, the UK may have over 100,000 cases of H1N1 infection along with roughly 30 deaths as a result. The US is reported to have 40,000 cases with over 250 deaths. But because the flu pandemic has spread so far and wide, it is difficult to determine whether someone s death is a direct result from swine flu, or whether the figures and statistics are accurate. There are simply too many cases and not enough resources being spent on data collection; some would say at least governments have their priorities right. The National Pandemic Flu Service will be primarily a web based service, alongside a call center which will not be operated by health staff or qualified professionals to allow an “ease of burden on the NHS”. It will act as a checklist service that algorithmically determines whether your symptoms are severe enough to require Tamiflu, the main anti-viral drug used to combat the illness.
DVDs Last Only Two to Five Years
The National Archives warns - “CD/DVD experiential life expectancy is 2 to 5 years even though published life expectancies are often cited as 10 years, 25 years, or longer. However, a variety of factors discussed in the sources cited in FAQ 15, below, may result in a much shorter life span for CDs/DVDs. Life expectancies are statistically based; any specific medium may experience a critical failure before its life expectancy is reached. Additionally, the quality of your storage environment may increase or decrease the life expectancy of the media. We recommend testing your media at least every two years to assure your records are still readable.” Busines continuity planning is impacted by this. However there may be a solution. Start-up claims its DVDs last 1,000 years - The DiamonDisc uses standard DVD players and burn software and Cranberry’s DiamonDisc product holds a standard 4.7GB of data, which roughly amounts to 2,000 photos, or 1,200 songs, or three hours of video, but the media is unharmed by heat as high as 176 degrees Fahrenheit, ultraviolet rays or normal material deterioration, according to the company. DiamonDiscs contain no dye layers, adhesive layers or reflective materials that could deteriorate.
Disaster recovery continues to be an area of high risk and high cost
A recent survey by Janco Associates showed that organizations of all sizes considered that the loss of IT systems was the threat most likely to have an impact on costs and revenue and that it is the most commonly experienced disruption. The regulated nature of the IT environment, combined with the statutory obligations of clients’ data protection, means that having a disaster recovery system in place is essential. Until now, enterprises of all sizes have faced enormous costs and inflexible regimes to implement effective IT disaster recovery provisions. Many have therefore been forced to settle for a mere plan of action or ineffective options, which may in reality, do little to reduce their risks. So what are the options for protecting critical IT systems for your firm? Have a backup Most organizations take backups, but it is the barest minimum requirement for protecting your firm from a disaster. Backups are for getting you out of a hole when you accidentally delete/lose/corrupt data on your working machines. If you lose those machines completely then the backup will only help once you have replaced and rebuilt your systems. In addition, replacing and rebuilding is not as simple as it sounds and can take a long time before you have working systems again. CIOs should also know that taking a backup is not the same as having a good working backup. Backup processes have a reputation for letting enterprises down when they need them most. If the recovery plan in based on backups only, CIOs should check regularly that backups are actually working and understand that they have only covered the first step and plan to be without working systems for typically around 3 to 7 days). Also, remember that if you want to guard against a disaster that physically destroys your machines, then your backups need to be off-site - well out of harm’s way.
Disaster Recovery Planning International Standard Set by Janco
Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Template Now Accepted as the International Standard Update to the Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Template has just been released by Janco Associates.. Park City, UT - The Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Planning template has been sold to enterprise in over 65 countries around the globe. With the release the latest verison of the template it is in complete compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, ITIL (Ver 3), ISO 17799, and PCI DSS.M V Janulaitis the CEO of Janco said, “Our DRP /BCP Template has been accepted by enterprise around the globe as the standard for disaster recovery plan and business continuity plan creation.” In response to that need Janco has updated its “Disaster Recovery / Business Continuity Template” by increasing the content of the template as well as updating the entire document to be compliant with Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, ITIL (Ver. 3), ISO 17799, and PCI DSS. The Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Plan has been purchased for use in over 65 countries around the globe including: Angola Australia Austria Bahamas Barbados Belgium Belize Bermuda Brazil Bulgaria Canada Cayman Islands Columbia Croatia Czech Republic Denmark Egypt Finland France Germany Greece Honduras Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Jordan Kenya Lebanon Lithuania Macao Malta Mexico Mozambique Namibia Netherlands New Zealand Nigeria Norway Panama Philippines Poland Portugal Puerto Rico Qatar Republic of Ireland Romania Russia Saudi Arabia Singapore South Africa South Korea Spain Sri Lanka Swaziland Switzerland Taiwan Thailand Trinidad & Tobago Uganda United Kingdom United States Venezuela Zambia The Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Plan has been purchased for use in government, public, and private enterprises in almost all industries including: Federal Government State Governments Local Governments Law Firms Think Tanks Chemical Telecommunication Real Estate Manufacturing Universities School Districts Consulting Firms Banks Financial Service Investment Banks Credit Unions Outsourcers Property Mgt Heavy Industry Light Industry Distribution Retail Hospitality Energy Insurance Medical ISPs Application Development Construction Graphics Entertainment Paper Products Defense Aerospace Media
Swine Flu - DRP - BCP - CIO Issue
What swine flu has done is reminded us all of the necessity to plan for threat scenarios that affect people more than they do data centers and other physical corporate facilities. Alternate work area facilities, mobile recovery units, and other workforce recovery strategies are not effective when people are home sick or there are travel bans in place. In these scenarios, your workforce recovery strategy must rely on remote access solutions or virtual workforce solutions. Large numbers of employees out sick will affect the business (revenue) and cost your company a lot of money in productivity loss (you still pay employees their salary when they are out). In a recent Janco Associates survey, they asked over 300 DRP/BCP decision makers if their company had strategies for workforce recovery in their BCPs, 71% said yes. This means that 29% of you out there have a lot of work to do. Of the 71% that have strategies in place, 82% use remote access procedures as part of their strategy. The US Center for Disease Control (CDC) has confirmed thousands of cases of swine flu in the United States and as other countries including Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Israel, Spain, and all of Europe has confirmed cases. This means health officials have confirmed that the disease can spread person-to-person and has the potential to cause “community-level” outbreaks. IT disaster recovery is not necessarily business continuity. In addition there is a good chance that the plan is out of date and that it has not been exercised in a long time. A plan walk through is no substitute for a more thorough exercise but it is a good place to start. Validate the currency of the plan and the procedures. Validate team member, roles, and responsibilities. Understand what technology and services you currently have in place.
Disaster Recovery Business Continuity for Remote Offices
Data residing outside the data center at remote and branch offices (ROBOs) accounts for a significant portion of an enterprise’s information store, yet it often either is protected with inefficient backup processes or is not protected at all — leaving companies at risk on many fronts. In a recent research report, high priority projects for ROBOs included improving information security measures; ensuring compliance with government, industry or corporate governance mandates; and improving Disaster Recovery Business Continuity processes.
What is the optimal method of back up for an enterprise’s disaster recovery plan?
The Backup and Backup Retention policy is an 11 page sample policy that is a complete policy which can be implemented immediately. The document is provided in both Word 2003 and Word 2007 format and is easily modified. Solution Benefit Cost Local Backup Shorter backup times Reduced bandwidth More hardware and staff Security risks Central Backup Less hardware and staff Increased bandwidth costs Increased backup times Central Backup Shorter backup times Reduced bandwidth Less hardware and staff One-time technology investment
Roles in Developing a Disaster Recovery Plan
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. The Disaster Recovery Plan Template has tools that can be used immediately and defined in detail all of these responsiblities and provides a work plan that can be use as is.
