Guidelines for Maintaining Business Continuity for Your Organization

Transcription

1 Guidelines for Maintaining Business Continuity for Your Organization Protect your business from disruptions and keep your workforce productive. Every organization faces the possibility of disruptions. Citrix mobile workspace technology helps you keep the business running no matter what.

2 Business continuity planning is essential to keep people productive during planned or unplanned disruptions and protect with technologies and best practices to ensure seamless operations no matter what happens. Disruptions are often inevitable but they don t have to damage your business. Citrix mobile Addressing the business continuity imperative While business continuity planning has traditionally focused on failover and disaster recovery for This paper presents an approach to business continuity based on mobile workspace technology can remain productive during any kind of business disruption Real-world examples of four companies that have already implemented highly effective business continuity strategies based on remote access 2

3 The importance of business continuity and the challenges it poses interrupted work in progress and the loss collaborative cohesion with teammates and management not to mention the personal impact the event may have had on them. Business continuity is absolutely a strategic function for any organization, and it has to be treated as such. Without an effective business resumption strategy, the organization is at constant risk of having its competitive position and market success undermined. Executive leadership needs to make sure that people throughout the organization can give this vital function the time and attention it demands. Stan Black Bringing the datacenter back online and restoring any lost data Replacing lost or inaccessible devices and ensuring that each can run the user s required software access methods to workarounds for applications which can no longer be accessed restore and maintain service to the organization while getting people back to work as quickly as A global approach for your business continuity strategy business continuity plan provides a framework and preparation to guide these decisions as well as a clear indication of who will make them. Successful business continuity programs require executives must play an active role in the development of this plan and ensure buy-in from the rest position and market success undermined. Executive leadership needs to make sure that people throughout the organization can give this vital function the time and attention it demands. With continuity strategy that encompasses all of the following essential elements. 3

4 Employee Safety and Awareness Programs Business Continuity Team Structure Crisis Communications Citrix Standard of Business Continuity Business Continuity Plans Disaster Recover and BC Testing Team structure One of the top considerations for a business continuity plan is the development of a clear responsibility or authority to make a given decision. The organization should be able to address all business continuity tasks in every location in which it local and broader-based emergencies. Key members of the business continuity team must remain involved in planning and testing throughout the year to ensure that the plan is effective and up-to- service agencies and customers Campus response prepares property and equipment for the impending disaster event; performs post-event assessment of damage and its impact on continuing operations; assists with insurance claims; secures buildings and grounds Business readiness acts as a liaison with individual business unit teams; makes arrangements to implement disaster business operations for each unit; provides a tactical response and business direction Each of these teams reports into the Citrix executive management committee. 4

5 Business continuity planning active region or civil unrest in politically unstable areas. Planning extends throughout the supply potential risks of operational outages and evaluating alternatives. To keep the number of scenarios versions of each incident. Our success rate has been phenomenal on both the disaster recovery side and the business unit side. Still, no matter how many times we go through the business continuity process real something we can add or improve to make it better and smoother. John Lugo Citrix It won t always be possible to maintain normal operations in an emergency situation. To mitigate of business unit owners with a business continuity analyst. This group works together to rank the applications will be available to the business within an established recovery time objective (RTO) and recovery point objective (RPO). Testing sense of security. changes throughout the year to supplement this annual review. Full emergency simulations should be conducted at least annually as well. These guidelines should be considered the minimum; in quarterly business continuity and recoverability testing for all mission-critical applications. Tabletop 5

6 Crisis communications organization s communications toolkit should include internal and external resources such as team should work to convey a consistent message on the company s behalf via external channels Employee safety Keeping people safe should be the top priority in any emergency response. There are many ways regularly with all employees. Emergency evacuation procedures should be reviewed and tested Business Continuity Planning Checklist Business continuity team structure Business continuity planning Disaster recover/ business continuity testing Crisis communications Employee safety and awareness programs Secure executive buy-in Form core business continuity team Create business analysis team Develop disaster scenarios Prioritize recovery per business considerations Map recovery goals to dependencies Develop datacenter continuity strategy Develop workforce continuity strategy Update plans regularly * Test recoverability of mission-critical applications * Perform tabletop exercises and walkthroughs * Establish formal crisis communication program Identify stakeholders for emergency communications Identify key internal communications channels Draft sample communications Develop programs through tabletop exercises and emergency response training by local agencies Incorporate safety and awareness into new employee orientation Review and test emergency evacuation procedures * 6

7 Workforce continuity: enabling uninterrupted access to business resources Datacenter continuity can keep IT operations up and running but what if people have been business can t function. While business continuity has traditionally revolved around a designated alternate workplace or without the need for special infrastructure or complex connectivity. A complete and effective business continuity program has to encompass not only the datacenter, but the workforce as well. Simply put, if people can t do their jobs, the business can t function. Stan Black services in both routine operations and emergency situations. This makes it simple for people to people through a long list of changed processes. Making mobility and remote access core elements of business continuity planning lets you increase the value of these investments while eliminating many separate business continuity processes and costs. Because people access and use their resources the same way delivered to people s devices is secured and controlled through mobile device management Organizations can invoke their business continuity plan to have people work at home during an epidemic rather than taking its chances and hoping the 7

8 disaster will pass without impacting the business. The plan becomes much more effective when it is seen as an acceptable adjustment to circumstances rather than a last resort to be invoked only in We ve relocated people to hotel conference rooms, shifted our workload around the world based on facilities closing, rapidly increased capacity in other areas based on potential disasters we ve done it all many times, especially when it s hurricane season in Florida. The service we provide both internally and externally to our customers has never been affected. It s a real enabled by our technology. John Lugo Citrix in Florida. The service we provide both internally and externally to our customers has never been Ensuring workforce continuity with Citrix technologies Citrix mobile workspace technology helps organizations ensure continuity of operations during business disruptions. The industry-leading Citrix Workspace Suite enables IT to securely deliver all network. Key elements of the suite to support business continuity include the following. Displaced workers who have lost access to their usual work device can access their mobile powered by Citrix NetScaler Gateway support compliance and data protection. powered by Citrix XenMobile de-provisioning and selective wipe of any devices that have been used temporarily during a powered by Citrix XenDesktop IT can transform Windows apps and complete desktops into on-demand services delivered to mobile 8

9 powered by Citrix ShareFile content secure when business disruptions occur. and Citrix people work together more effectively when business disruptions keep them apart. IT can centrally Datacenter continuity: maintaining continuous IT operations Most large organizations already have more than one datacenter for scale and redundancy. If one comes back online. It s important to make sure that the associated infrastructure can support this powered by Citrix XenServer Citrix business continuity solutions help IT ensure that datacenter resources remain available. Citrix redistributes virtual machines from a failed host to other physical hosts and restarts them to protect critical workloads from localized events. 9

10 powered by Citrix NetScaler and Citrix CloudBridge NetScaler redirects users automatically and transparently to the secondary site while continuing to perform load balancing and global load balancing. NetScaler also allows organizations which use a public cloud for backup to manage this outsourced infrastructure the same way they would their bandwidth utilization across third-party public cloud and private networks and gain visibility into application performance to optimize the user experience in any scenario. While high water had forced us to shut down our power, we needed to be able to access charts and information for people who came in with emergencies. Magruder Hospital Four customers maintain business continuity with remote access powered by Citrix innovative solutions that improve health and enhance the quality of life for patients. The hospital is part of a three-hospital consortium sharing a healthcare IT infrastructure based on the concept of right information is delivered to clinicians at the right time to achieve the best possible health Citrix for server-based session virtualization. If there s a pandemic and everyone is at home on whatever computer is handy, we can deliver a desktop securely over NetScaler Gateway and allow them to function. Independent Bank Independent Bank delivers secure access to remote users VPN connection. 10

11 Gateway provides more robust data security to help meet regulatory requirements governing and network environment. desktop securely over NetScaler Gateway and allow them to function. XenServer also plays a key Desktop virtualization represents the backbone of our disaster recovery plan. Now our mobile employees have immediate access to legacy applications from wherever they are. Based on the bandwidth this requires, we could never have provided this to them before. High Point The City of High Point achieves cost-effective business continuity to many cities. While the city s desktop virtualization initiative was primarily designed to decrease represents the backbone of our disaster recovery plan. Now our mobile employees have immediate access to legacy applications from wherever they are. Based on the bandwidth this home and work. Desktop virtualization really simplified our disaster recovery strategy. Citrix provides a more comprehensive security solution, because we re not allowing users to actually put the content on the device; it s being accessed through the virtual network. The ability to provide this capability without having to invest in and equip an alternate disaster recovery site enables High Point to meet its business continuity planning goals and ensure uninterrupted service for its constituents without additional strain on its budget. Disaster recovery at CNL Financial Group 11

12 The secure remote access capabilities of Citrix provide the security needed to protect CNL s Conclusion The essence of business continuity is to minimize the impact of disruptions on people and the the same time they re coping with the stress and uncertainty of the event itself. Mobile workspace business units stay productive. IT can protect and control business information accessed from any continuity planning. Many IT organizations are already intensely focused on business mobility. By incorporating mobile more effectively against the risks posed by planned and unplanned disruptions. trademarks of their respective companies 1014/PDF 12