The disaster recovery "consulting practice" centers
around Information Technology professionals with years of experience in
management, project management, quality, business resumption planning,
operating system support, systems integration, network and sales.
Consulting Services
An approved plan for business-critical IT systems and applications is
developed and then all procedures are tested to ensure that the
implemented plan matches your business and IT requirements. Delivering
your "Business Resumption Plan" at reduced cost and in the shortest
timeframe possible is the goal.
- Business Impact Analysis - This service helps you define your recovery
requirements from a business perspective and includes assessment of
process criticality, resource requirements, Recovery Time Objectives
(RTO) and strategies/costs to meet these objectives.
- Business Resumption Planning - Once recovery strategies are approved
and implemented, procedures and reference information need to be
documented for those business areas and support groups that will be
recovered. All plans will include instructions for detection,
escalation, notification, alert, declaration, relocation, procedures for
recovery and other reference information.
- Operational Review - An operational review is performed to optimize
your current processes and programs relating to back-up and restore of
customer environments. The chief deliverable includes technical and
operational recommendations to improve and optimize back-up and restore
programs.
- Technology Recovery Planning - This service provides Resumption
Planning services focused entirely on recovery of your information
processing and associated networks.
- Technical Scripting - Technical scripting services focus on the
development of the technical scripts for restoration and certification
of operating, application and network systems.
- Plan Maintenance (IT and Departmental) - Your environment changes, and
a formalized maintenance process provides for the ongoing testing and
update of your existing Business Resumption Plans for IT business areas.
Disaster Recovery Defined:
DISASTER RECOVERY: Activities and
programs designed to return the entity to an acceptable condition. The
ability to respond to an interruption in services by implementing a
disaster recovery plan to restore an organization's critical business
functions.
DISASTER RECOVERY PLANNING: The
technological aspect of business continuity planning. The advance
planning and preparations that are necessary to minimize loss and ensure
continuity of the critical business functions of an organization in the
event of disaster. SIMILAR TERMS: Contingency Planning; Business
Resumption Planning; Corporate Contingency Planning; Business
Interruption Planning; Disaster Preparedness.
"Despite the
widespread reporting of disasters and their effects, many companies,
corporate directors, and officers remain apathetic toward implementing a
disaster recovery plan. Companies are generally unwilling to commit the
finances and resources to implement a plan unless forced to do so.
However, implementing a disaster recovery plan is a strategic, moral,
and legal obligation to one’s company.
If the billions of dollars spent on technology annually
to maintain a competitive edge is an indication of how reliant our
society is on technology, then failing to implement a disaster recovery
plan is an indication of corporate negligence. Standards of care and due
diligence are required of all corporations, public or private. Not
having a disaster recovery plan violates that fiduciary standard of
care." Tari Schreider - DRJ - Spring, 1996
Business Continuity Defined:
What exactly is business continuity?
**
Business continuity is a well-defined recovery process
to keep your company functioning through just about any
disaster that may occur. This may be a natural disaster such
as an earthquake, hurricane, or tornado. It can also be a
man-made event such as a power outage, programmer error or
malicious deletion of data. The end goal is to have a plan
in place that mitigates the damage and keeps the company
functioning in such a way that your end clients are unaware
of the problem situation you may be dealing with. A business
continuity plan is much more than just a data center
recovery plan. A BC plan also includes recovery of critical
data repositories, paper based functions and other critical
items that are required to run your business. A complete BC
plan will provide for the end-to-end, complete system
recovery from the hardware perspective, and the steps
necessary to recover the business processes as well.
Why do a BC plan?
The foremost reason behind business continuity planning
is that it is good business practice. It assures your
employees, stockholders and customers your company will
still be in business after a disruptive event. Don’t forget
federal regulations. Regulations may require some type of
organizations to implement business continuity and disaster
recovery projects. Senior executives may no longer have the
option to choose whether or not they want to do business
continuity. There have been an abundance of new regulations
implemented that have reaching effects on many, if not all
companies. Some of the following regulations may have an
impact on your company business.
HIPAA Plan (§164.308(a)(7)(i))
Every covered entity that deals with protected health
information (PHI) must have a contingency plan in place.
Most companies should have been
in compliance by April 14, 2003.
Small companies should have been
in compliance by April 14, 2004.
National Association of Security
Dealers (NASD) Rule 3510 and 3520
Requires members to create business continuity plans and
provide emergency contact information. Effective dates:
Rule 3510
Clearing Firms Aug. 11, 2004
Introducing Firms Sept. 10,
2004
Rule 3520 All Firms June 14, 2004
Sarbanes-Oxley Rule 404
Management will establish and maintain internal control
structures and procedures for financial
reporting.Effective dates:
fully functional by April 15,
2005
Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA)
GLBA provides provisions to protect consumers’ personal
financial information held by financial institutions.
There are three principal parts to the privacy
requirements: the Financial Privacy Rule, Safeguards
Rule and pretexting provisions. Effective dates:
Full compliance by July 1, 2001
A business continuity plan should be
viewed as an investment in your company. It provides the
security in knowing your company should be able to recover
and continue from just about any type of disaster.
** - Blackmon, Jeff - DRJ - Spring 2005 -
Vol. 18, Issue 2
