CAPSOUTH PARTNERS Disaster Recovery Plan

Transcription

1 CapSouth Partners Disaster Recovery Team. CAPSOUTH PARTNERS Disaster Recovery Plan Marshall Bolden Sonya Baldwin Craig Bolden (cell) (cell) (cell) In case of emergency Donald P. Bolden The CapSouth Partners disaster recovery plan provides a guideline to enable the firm to operate and resume services as soon as reasonably possible during or after a disaster. Our goal is to make sure that clients are affected as minimally as possible. Some disasters that occur may affect clients access to their advisor as well as their account. CapSouth Partners will work to regain the client s full access as soon as reasonably possible. Our firm s policy is to respond to any type of business disruption by safeguarding employees lives and firm property, making a financial and operational assessment, quickly recovering and resuming operations, protecting all of the firm s books and records, and allowing our clients to transact business. In the event that we determine we are unable to continue our business, we will assure clients prompt access to their funds and securities. The type of disasters that could affect CapSouth Partners (not all inclusive): Fire Hurricane Tornado Terrorist Attack Power Outage Death of a Key Employee Offices: Corporate Office 2216 W. Main Street, Dothan, AL / CapSouth Partners 1200 Keys Ferry Court, McDonough, GA

2 Significant Business Disruptions (SBDs) Our plan anticipates two kinds of SBDs, internal and external. Internal SBDs affect only our firm s ability to communicate and do business, such as a fire in our building. External SBDs prevent the operation of the securities markets or a number of firms, such as a terrorist attack, a city flood, or a wide-scale, regional disruption. Our response to an external SBD relies more heavily on other organizations and systems, especially on the capabilities of our custodians. Plan Location and Access An electronic copy of our plan is located on the main server and is backed up daily. A copy is available on our website and on the CapSouth Advisor Portal (employee access only). A hard copy will also be maintained. Business Description Our firm conducts business in equity, fixed income, and mutual fund securities (discretionary and non-discretionary) as well as providing consulting and investment advice to private, corporate, and retirement plan clients. Our firm does not perform any type of clearing function for itself or others. Furthermore, we do not hold customer funds or securities. We accept and enter orders. All transactions are sent to a custodian, which executes our orders through their broker/dealer, compares them, allocates them, clears and settles them. The custodian also maintains our clients accounts, can grant clients access to funds, and delivers funds and securities. We do not engage in any private placements. The contact information for our custodian / clearing firm Charles Schwab Institutional 1958 Summit Park Place, #400 Orlando, FL Phone (Southern Service Team For CapSouth Use) Schwab Alliance (For Clients Use) Client Access to Funds and Securities Our firm does not maintain custody of client funds or securities. In the event of an internal or external business disruption, if telephone service is available, our Advisors will take customer orders or instructions and contact the custodian on their behalf, and if our Web access is available, our firm will post on our Web site that clients may access their funds and securities by contacting Schwab Alliance ( ) Data Back-Up and Recovery Our firm maintains its primary hard copy books and records and electronic records at 2216 W. Main St., Dothan, AL Sonya Baldwin, CCO is responsible for the maintenance of these back-up books and records.

3 The firm has contracted with a third party to provide back up services for all electronic records. RealTime, LLC 2999 Ross Clark Circle S.W., Suite 500 PO Box 218 Dothan, AL Phone Fax In the event of an internal or external business disruption that causes the loss of our records, we will recover them from our backup service provider. Financial and Operational Assessments Operational Risk In the event of a disaster, we will immediately identify what means will permit us to communicate with our clients, employees, critical business vendors, critical banks, and regulators. Although the effects of a business disruption will determine the means of alternative communication, the communication options we will employ will include website, client portal, telephone voice mail, secure and cell phones. In addition, we will retrieve our key records as described in the Data Back-Up and Recovery section above. Financial and Credit Risk In the event of a disaster, we will determine the value and liquidity of our assets to evaluate our ability to continue to fund our operations. We will contact our clearing firms and critical banks and state business authorities to apprise them of our financial status. If we determine that we may be unable to meet our obligations to those counter parties or otherwise continue to fund our operations, we will request additional financing from our bank or other credit sources to fulfill our obligations to our clients. If we cannot remedy a capital deficiency, we will file appropriate notices with our regulators and immediately take appropriate steps. Emergency During Office Hours If an emergency occurs during office hours, employees should call 911. The next step will depend on the type of emergency. If the emergency requires the employees to quickly evacuate the building all employees should gather their belongings, if time permits, and exit the building. The designated meeting area for all CapSouth (Dothan) employees is the parking lot of Tom West Realty (located across Girard Ave.). The designated meeting are for all CapSouth (McDonough) employees is the parking lot area in back of the Commerce Building. Certain emergencies will require employees to remain in-doors. Employees should at all times follow the instructions of emergency personnel.

4 After-Business Hours Disruption/Discovery and Notification of Employees: In the event that a business disruption or disaster occurs after hours, each employee will be contacted, informed of the nature of the event and given instructions regarding if, when and where to convene. Any employee initially discovering an emergency situation must contact Donald Bolden. If Donald Bolden is not available they should contact Marshall Bolden, or Sonya Baldwin. Once the disaster recovery team has determined a course of action, all remaining employees will be contacted and notified of what to do. Each employee will be notified of the situation and provided with instructions either to meet at the office at a later time, to meet at one of the alternate business locations or to wait for further instructions. Disruption in Services of Critical Third-Party Vendor: In the event of a disruption in the services provided by a critical service provider, a designated individual will attempt to contact the vendor to determine the nature of the problem and an estimate of the restoration of services. If the vendor cannot be reached and services cannot be restored, a team will be put together of employees involved with this critical service area to determine an appropriate work-around solution. If repeated efforts to contact the vendor and/or restore services are unsuccessful, CapSouth will consider contacting a back-up or replacement vendor. Alternate Site for Business Operations: If one of the CapSouth Partner s office locations is damaged or inaccessible, the alternate branch office will be designated as a temporary alternate location from which to restore normal business operations. If the expected duration of the disruption or inaccessibility of the office is longer than a month, management will determine a more permanent alternative location if necessary. Depending on an employee s job requirements and the availability of a personal computer and internet access at home, some employees may be permitted or required to work remotely for a time from their own residence. Based on the relatively small size and staff of CapSouth, this will be determined and communicated to each employee at the appropriate time based on the circumstances. (Remote Staff Location for Dothan Office): McDonough Office 1200 Keys Ferry Court McDonough, GA (Remote Staff Location for the McDonough Office): Dothan Office 2216 W. Main Street Dothan, AL Both sites are existing firm offices and set up w/ a computer system that will allow employees access to client accounts via the internet. CapSouth Partners can continue to view client accounts and enter trades either through the website or by calling the custodian. CapSouth Partners estimates that it will take hours to obtain the equipment needed to have files restored at an individual branch location. This estimate of course could vary based on the availability of overnight carrier services, etc.

5 Death of Key Employee: Donald Bolden Financial Advisor / President Marshall Bolden Investment Analyst / Compliance / Vice President Sonya Baldwin Operations / Compliance / Vice President Employees are cross trained to handle the daily duties of other employees in the case of a death or extended illness. The majority of CapSouth clients have a working relationship with more than one employee of CapSouth. Advisory Services: Several employees are Series 65 licensed and are capable of providing investment advisory services. Daily Operations: Sonya Baldwin currently oversees daily private client operations. Meredith Agan is also trained in the private client area and Anthony B. McCallister is trained in the retirement plan area. Compliance: Sonya Baldwin currently oversees the compliance of the firm. Marshall P. Bolden also has the authority to review compliance and oversee compliance on behalf of the firm. Executive Committee: Donald Bolden Marshall Bolden Sonya Baldwin Anthony McCallister Scott Fain has information regarding Key Man Insurance Policies and copies of these policies are maintained in a fireproof safe. Computer Back-Up Procedures Craig Bolden is responsible for CapSouth Partners computer back-up system. The server is maintained with a separate log-in and password. The server remains locked at all times and is secured in a locked room at the end of each day. *Client account information (account data / transaction history / etc.) is web based so it is not included in the CapSouth daily backup but is included in the backup procedures of the custodian. CapSouth does have transaction activity in Portfolio Center which is backed up on the CS Server.

6 Info Provided by Real-Time, LLC Near Real-Time Backups: Our Incremental Forever methodology captures all changes to the initial image in increments of 15 minutes. The Incremental Forever technology not only backs up recent datasets but also allows end users to reconstruct the state of their data as it stood at the end of various 15-minute restoration points. This level of forensic and auditable data recovery may satisfy various regulatory requirements (such as HIPAA and GLBA) for data retention and data record reconstruction, and also serves stakeholders such as supply chain planners, warehouse analysts, auditors, and legal counsel. On-site Virtual Server: If any of your servers fail, our server virtualization technology embedded in the Network Attached Storage (NAS) allows customer servers and applications to be restored and rebooted in less than 30 minutes in most cases. As you may sometimes endure a wait of several days in order to receive replacement servers from vendors, your NAS can have your business up and running. The NAS multitasks so that, even while functioning as a virtual server, it can continue to back up data from other devices plugged into the NAS. Our technology thus allows you to remain in business without any significant loss of data backup, server functionality, or application downtime. A Complete Image: We generate an image of all hard drive partitions via an agent, which is warehoused on the NAS device physically located at your location. The data is stored using AES-256 bit encryption and compressed. We employ a block-level, not file-level, backup, which means that data is captured at the level of 1 s and 0 s. Block level data is raw data which does not have a file structure imposed on it. Database applications such as Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Exchange Server transfer data in blocks. Block transfer is the most efficient way to write to disk and is much less prone to errors such as those that result from file-level backups. Additionally, block level backups are not affected by open files or open databases. The block-level image is an exact digital duplicate of the on-site server Intuitive and Flexible Restoration: A good backup system should allow for quick and flexible restores. Our solution allows for recovery of files, folders, partitions, mailboxes/messages, databases/tables using a quick and intuitive process. In case of a complete server failure we do support a bare metal restore to new hardware which has a different configuration, hardware and drivers as compared to the failed server. Our 15-minute incremental based backup allows restores to be done from any point in time, allowing for multiple versions of files, folders, messages/mailboxes, database/tables to be restored. Secure Remote Storage: After imaging the servers to which it is attached, the NAS device then creates an independent 256-bit encrypted tunnel and transmits the imaged data to a secure offsite location where it resides in an encrypted, compressed format. That remote site then replicates again to an alternate data center, creating a total of three copies of the data in three geographically distinct regions. Since the data is encrypted and only you have the key, no one has access at any of the remote storage facilities. Transmitting data to a remote site is a key component of BCP. It guarantees that, in case of physical damage to the client s network or NAS, or even regional disaster, the data is safe in uncompromised locations. Encryption is an important step in the process of transmitting data between the NAS and the remote sites, because it greatly reduces the risk of data loss incidents that plague magnetic tape and prevents man-in-the-middle attacks during transmission. We employ the 256-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) algorithm because it has never been broken and is currently considered the gold standard of encryption techniques and render transmitted data immune to theft. Secure, Bandwidth Throttling Transfer: Transmission itself occurs over your Internet connection, and can easily be configured to minimize bandwidth consumption. Our NAS leverages Adaptive Bandwidth Throttling, which only utilizes unused bandwidth or allows us to set an outbound limit. Our UDP based smart transfer technology utilizes a host of innovative algorithms to speed up data transport and resume from failure. We can therefore exercise fine control over the data imaging and transmission processes. 24x7 Completely Managed Solution: Our 500-person Network Operations Center (NOC) monitors your NAS units and the attached servers 24/7. Failed processes generate immediate alerts to our engineers, who often remotely correct errors within minutes of receiving notification. In case of more serious NAS issues,

7 we will conduct repairs at your site. If any NAS units are irreparably damaged or destroyed, at an additional cost we will overnight ship replacements pre-loaded with all stored data directly to your location. RealTime, LLC 2999 Ross Clark Cr. Suite 500 Dothan, AL Telephone: Fax: Recovery Procedures: If systems are accessible and otherwise undamaged following an emergency, for example during a power failure, it may be possible to safely retrieve and transport CapSouth s server and hardware systems, containing all electronically stored data, to the alternate site for restoration of business operations. The Disaster Recover Team will make the decision as to whether or not this course of action is practical. In the case that the onsite systems have been destroyed, a new server will be ordered. This new server should be used for data recovery and functional restoration. All client accounts are accessed via the internet. Telecommunications Disruption: In the event that local land line telephone service is disrupted, employees are encouraged to use their personal cellular phones to conduct business until service is restored. For disruptions that may last more than 24 hours, the call forwarding feature should be utilized. This will forward all in-coming calls made to the office to a cellular phone number to someone on the management team. Clients may be ed (if possible) to notify them of the situation and/or a message will be posted on the CapSouth website. Critical Processes: CapSouth Partners has primary responsibility for establishing and maintaining our business relationships with our clients and has responsibility for our mission critical functions of order taking and order entry. Our clearing firm provides the comparison, allocation, clearance and settlement of securities transactions, the maintenance of customer accounts, access to customer accounts, and the delivery of funds and securities. Our clearing firm maintains a business continuity plan and the capacity to execute the plan. Our clearing firms represent that they will advise us of any material changes to their plan that might affect our ability to maintain our business. In the event that our clearing firms execute their plan, they will notify us of such execution and provide us equal access to services as their other clients. Order Taking Currently, our firm receives orders from clients via telephone or in person. During a business disruption, either internal or external, we will continue to take orders through any of these methods that are available and reliable. As communications permit, we will inform our clients when communications become available to tell them what alternatives

8 they have to send their orders to us. Clients will be informed of alternatives by phone, , or website notification. If necessary we will advise clients to place orders directly with the clearing firm. Order Entry Currently, our firm enters orders vie the internet. In the event of a business disruption, we will enter and send records to our clearing firm by the fastest alternative means available, which include phone, fax, or . In the event of an external business disruption, we will maintain the order in electronic or paper format, and deliver the order to the clearing firm by the fastest means available when it resumes operations. During an internal business disruption, we may need to refer our clients to deal directly with the clearing firm for order entry. Legal Regulatory Compliance (including Form ADV amendments, state notice filings and fees, etc.) Trading Compliance (proprietary & personal trading, quarterly transaction reports) Portfolio Management Currently, Marshall Bolden is responsible for the oversight and management of the discretionary portfolios. All orders that would need to be entered for these portfolios will be handled as mentioned above in the order entry section. Research information is obtained from various sources, and in the event of a business disruption, an alternate source of information could be used if the current resource is to remain unavailable for an unacceptable period of time due to an internal or external disaster. HR Payroll Benefit Administration Client Relations Website updates (posting dependent on third-party vendors) Quarterly reports summarizing performance ClientView IT User support System recovery User account information Finance Tax materials and preparation Monthly or quarterly closing (calculating returns, calculating fees and billing client accounts) Central Files Organization, maintenance and security of records Regulatory compliance

9 Insurance Documents Firm Vulnerability Description Hurricanes, Tornadoes, Severe Weather Flood Plain or Low Lying Area Earthquake Zone Hazardous Industry, Terrorist Target Mudslides or Wildfires Fire, Telephone Outage Risk Level (High, Med, Low) High Low Low Low Low Average Alternate Communication We now communicate with our clients using the telephone, , our web site, ClientView portal, fax, U.S. mail, and in person visits at our firm or other locations. In the event of a disaster, we will assess which means of communication are still available to us, and use the means closest in speed and form to the means that we have used in the past to communicate with the other party. For example, if we have communicated with a party by but the internet is unavailable, we will call them on the telephone. Disclosure of Business Continuity Plan We will mail our Business Continuity Plan to clients upon request, as well as make it available on our website.

10 Timeline of Tasks 0-2 hours: Discovery and Assessment; Does disaster occur during business hours? Yes, call 911 Is evacuation necessary? Does remaining in the bldg pose a threat to the safety of employees? If, yes, evacuate bldg and meet at designated location outside building. If safety permits, secure all confidential client information prior to evacuation. Once at designated location, confirm that all employees are safe. Attempt to estimate the amount of time before possible resumption onsite. If more than a day, determine whether or not to initiate a set-up of alternate site. If evacuation of the building is not necessary, can normal operations resume? If the disruption does not permit the resumption of normal business, attempt to assess estimated amount of time before possible resumption onsite. If less than a day, determine whether or not to dismiss employees for a number of hours. If more than a day, determine whether or not to initiate a setup of the firm s alternate location. If disruption results from an emergency at a key third-party vendor assess amount of time until restoration by vendor, formulate an alternative (if possible) or determine whether an alternative vendor may fill the gap.

11 NO If disaster does not occur during business hours, anyone discovering the situation must notify Donald Bolden, Sonya Baldwin, Marshall Bolden or Scott Fain. They will determine if the situation precludes safe and normal business operations. If yes, employees will be contacted and informed of situation, they will be directed to either meet at a remote location or to await further instructions. If no, the disaster recovery team will attempt to quickly assess the amount of time before employees can return on-site. Employees will be contacted and notified when to return to office location. 2-6 hours: Initiate Emergency Recovery / Contact Critical Vendors: Determine which staff will meet at alternative location and which will work from home. Set a time the following day for a conference call, if possible. Begin to compile list of data lost or inaccessible If possible, begin to salvage data and files from principal office or make plans for such salvage as soon as safety permits. If necessary, initiate recover of backed-up data to alternate systems Begin to capture expenses associated with disruption Notify insurance carriers of situation, if necessary Secure confidential information ASAP Notify key vendors and custodians of the situation Contact telephone company and have calls redirected to the cell phone number of an employee on the management team Determine if and what client communication is necessary If possible and necessary, record emergency voic to provide basic information regarding situation to clients who may call in, and vendors. If possible and necessary, post a notice to clients on the firm s home page informing them of the situation, how to contact CapSouth and any other vital information. If possible and necessary, send an out to all clients informing them of the situation and other important information.

12 Verify that restoration of back-up data was successful and systems are fully operational. 6-8 hours: Restoration of Normal Business Operations Resume Normal Operations Or Assess damage and estimated time until principal office will be accessible and operational. If estimate is more that a month, begin to formulate plan for new principal office or a more permanent alternate location. If necessary, notify regulators to inform them of situation and new operating location. Update and Review Our firm will update this plan whenever we have a material change to our operations, structure, business or location or to those of the clearing firm. In addition, our firm will review this plan annually, to modify it for any changes in our operations, structure, business, or location or those of our clearing firms. Distribution of the Plan Each employee will receive two copies of the Plan and will be required to sign an acknowledgement that he/she has read and understands the Plan. One copy of the Plan is to be kept at the employee s workstation and one copy is to be kept at the employee s home. Updated