Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery Planning
Are you prepared for a disaster?
Water main break stymies Downtown business Pittsburgh Business Times The rupture Wednesday morning of an 80-year-old water main, the main water delivery system to Downtown Pittsburgh, left some of the city's bestknown office towers with water in their basements and vacant as companies evacuated employees. The break took place around 10:40 a.m. near Fort Duquesne Boulevard Downtown. Pittsburgh's emergency management services said a 36-inch line ruptured below Fort Duquesne Boulevard, next to One Gateway Center.
When should you plan for a disaster?
Why is Business Continuity (BC)/Disaster Recovering Planning (DRP) so important? 50% of organizations disrupted for 5 days are out of business within a year 77% of business owners do not know if they are ready to recover from a disruptive event 74% do not know the cost of downtime Most organizations assume that they can put their organization back together quickly
Questions to think about Would you do business with an organization if you knew they carried this level of risk? Should they do business with you? For critical vendors their risk is your risk!
7 Essential Steps to Disaster Planning 1. Develop the Contingency Planning Policy Statement 2. Document System Configurations and Vendors Diagrams Configuration files Vendors contact information Service Level Agreements Utility company contacts
7 Essential Steps to Disaster Planning 3. Conduct a Business Impact Analysis (BIA) Recovery Point Objective (RPO) Recovery Time Objective (RTO) Meantime to Recovery (MTTR) Data Classification 4. Identify Preventive Controls UPS Generators RAID Fire suppression Moisture detection sensors
7 Essential Steps to Disaster Planning 5. Develop Recovery Strategies Disk-based backup systems Virtualization Storage area networks Standby Email Cloud Solutions 6. Plan Testing and Training 7. Plan Maintenance
7 Essential Steps to Disaster Planning 1. Develop the Contingency Planning Policy Statement 2. Document System Configurations and Vendors 3. Conduct a Business Impact Analysis 4. Identify Preventive Controls 5. Develop Recovery Strategies 6. Plan Testing and Training 7. Plan Maintenance
Cloud Technology and Disaster Recovery
Common Mistakes The plan does not reflect YOUR business risks Risk assessment Business Impact Analysis Probability vs cost vs impact
IT Plan It is an IT Plan, not a Business Plan 71% of all organizations leave DR/BCP planning to the IT staff Few IT managers: are experts in business process management can decide what is critical to the business decide what are the corporate assets that are critical decide what is the organizational priority in a disruption have authority to make these decisions
All Data Treated Equally The growth of data is doubling every 18-months Types: Critical data Non-critical data Archived data Duplicate data Why is it treated all the same? This will affect your recovery times
Tape Backups Your plan is we have a tape backup This is your last resort not your first Logistics of recovery are very difficult (if not impossible) If this is strategy you are demonstrating poor corporate governance Use a data center for secondary backups
Plan Testing The plan has never been tested Against scenarios (fire, flood, pandemic, local, regional) Without key personnel Against expectations At least once per year or as objectives change
Lack of Human Resource Strategy Most plans lack personnel strategies Personnel Assumptions Missing Will not work Cannot work Have not been paid Assume they will come to work What happens when they don t? What about critical vendors (Does your plan incorporate them?) Can your plan survive this?
Summary Both Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plans are business processes Information Technology is just a component of it These plans add value to your business These plan force you to address the real issues Sell the value of your risk mitigation to your customers
Overview Pittsburgh, PA (Headquarters); New York, NY; Scottsdale, AZ; Philadelphia, PA; Washington, DC; Baltimore, MD; Portland, ME; Tampa, FL; Atlanta, GA; Boston, MA Managed Svcs CRM BI Plus Fusion IT Strategy Infrastructure Projects IT Security Staff Augmentation Infrastructure Strategy Portals Plus Consulting CRM Portals BI
Questions Josh.Wilhelm@PlusFusion.com 412-838-0180 1370 Washington Pike, Ste 203 Bridgeville, PA 15017