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Learn why testing recovery plans is crucial for business resilience, the impact of downtime, types of exercises, planning, executing, and follow-up strategies to improve recovery processes.
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General Membership Meeting April 15, 2004 St. Louis County Emergency Operations Center
PLANNING AND EXECUTING CONTINGENCY EXERCISES WORKAREA, SYSTEMS, AREA-WIDE, REGIONAL Anna M. Bathon, CBCP Bank of America 1
Agenda • Why test recovery plans? • Recovery Strategy Considerations • Types of Exercises • Establish A Testing Strategy • Exercise Phases • Planning the Exercise • Preparing for the Exercise • Executing/Conducting the Exercise • Follow-up / Issues Resolution • Closure / Next Exercise Date • Questions 2
Why Test Recovery Plans? • The confluence of five major trends are driving acceptance and adoption of more aggressive recovery solutions: • Businesses’ increased reliance on IT and data • Availability of solutions • Economics – impact of downtime and declining cost of solutions • IT data management challenge • Gartner Group comments: “… Enterprises that today tolerate two-day recovery time objectives will see that horizon diminish to one day or less.” • Key disaster-related statistics: • 43% of companies having a disaster never reopen. An additional 29% close within two years. • 68% of businesses that lose their computers for more than 7 days never reopen. • Within 2 weeks of the loss of computer support, 75% of those organizations affected reach critical or total loss of business functions. • Average hourly revenue lost from downtime is $78,000. • Businesses’ availability requirements being measured in hours. 3
Why Test Recovery Plans? • Demonstrates to Management ability of critical business processes to continue functionality within required timeframes following a disruption. • Recognizing a workable plan and making a plan work are two different things. • Regular testing and maintaining the plan accordingly will ensure optimum performance. • Exercising a plan is not a PASS or FAIL situation, but an opportunity to identify plan deficiencies and improve the recovery processes. • Testing is a dynamic process. • Provides an opportunity to stress test plans already reviewed as good; exercise strenuously to identify flaws. • Environments – workarea, systems – change and should be monitored continuously to assess the impact of changes to recovery strategies. • Major revisions to recovery plans require testing and appropriate documentation updated. 4
Recovery Strategy Considerations • Workarea – physical workspace of business units, including critical components, to ensure functionality can be resumed appropriately: • Equipment / hardware • Software • Telecom • Vital records • Compliance • Associate support / Intellectual Capital – What if most or all associates or lost in a disaster situation? • Support partners • Regional impacts • Applications – systems, infrastructure: • File-and-print servers • Application components / locations: • Simple configurations • Complex configurations • Infrastructure dependencies (firewalls, shared components) • External dependencies 5
Recovery Strategy Considerations • Third-Party Service Providers – Dependencies on vendors increasing, thus creating a greater impact when vendors encounter disruptions. • Who are the major strategic suppliers? • What is the product flow throughout your company? • Contingency plan options if vendor suffers a disruption? • Specialized equipment or processes? • Maximum potential for lost income if disruption encountered? • Does an interdependency chart exist? • Regional scenarios: • Natural • Weather (hurricane, earthquake, tornado, ice/snow) • Man-made • Fire • Terrorism • Disgruntled associate reactions • Accidental construction disruptions 6
Recovery Strategy Considerations • Crisis Management: • Call tree notification processes • Associate impacts • Decision-making process to diminish roadblocks in recovery process 7
Types of Exercises • Talk-Through / Table Top • Simulation / Connectivity • Integrated • Live 8
Types of Exercises • Talk-Through / Table Top • Generally considered first test of a plan • Cost-effective method of exercising plans • Minimal disruption to business • Raise level of awareness of the actual state of readiness • Identify major weaknesses or steps requiring further documentation 9
Types of Exercises • Simulation / Connectivity • Validates the facility, supplies, and equipment at the alternate site. • Should include connectivity testing, including voice and/or data connectivity. • Alternate site testing must include network connectivity testing, as appropriate. • Technical support participation dependent on extent of testing as defined by exercise objectives. 10
Types of Exercises • Integrated • Exercises multiple components of a plan, in conjunction with each other, typically under simulated operating conditions. • Workarea involves recovery of multiple critical business functions and related onsite systems that would be lost in the event of a site disaster. • Systems involves testing of recovery of multiple applications running on a single component or within a single site, i.e., data center environment. • Where appropriate, upstream/downstream interfaces should be exercised. 11
Types of Exercises • Live • Senior Management approval should be required for this type of exercise. • Perform production work at alternate recovery site. • High level of risk involved. • Selected associates, clients, vendors, technical support personnel, business continuity support personnel, and other dependent business units should participate. 12
Establish A Testing Strategy • Identify critical components of the recovery plan. • Identify frequency of testing based on risk rating determined through completion of BIA, i.e. quarterly, annually, bi-annually. • Select test type to most adequately validate all critical components. • Several different test types may need to be conducted to address all critical components to remain compliant. • When possible, conduct fully integrated exercises, requiring testing of all critical components. 13
Exercise Phases • Planning • Preparing • Executing / Conducting • Follow-up / Resolution • Closure / Next Exercise Date 14
Planning the Exercise • Identify resources • Select a test coordinator • Select the type of test • Define the test scope • Develop test goals and objectives • Define the disaster scenario • Document test assumptions • Set test date and duration • Define test team and participants • Schedule meetings 15
Preparing for the Exercise • Conduct preparatory meetings with participants • Develop tasks and issues lists • Identify equipment and site requirements • Document high-level test scripts • Develop exercise packet • Obtain approvals 16
Executing / Conducting the Exercise • Facilitate communication among test teams/participants. • Ensure activities occur in order published in exercise packet / scripts. Document deviations. • Ensure appropriate participants in the command center or appropriate alternate sites. • Work with sequence of events to log timeframes, issues, and any pertinent notations regarding activities. • Ensure issues documented and turned into test coordinator. • Compile issues into Issues List Report for tracking/resolution purposes. • Issues resolved during the test should be noted so. • Unresolved issues documented, assigned and tracked to resolution following the exercise. • Conduct periodic executive and test team status meetings and issue status updates throughout the exercise. • Document all costs associated with conducting the exercise. • Update appropriate telephone status resources. 17
Follow-up / Resolution • Schedule and conduct post-test review meeting shortly after concluding exercise. • Assign appropriate associates to work on resolving outstanding issues. • Follow up on resolution status. • Distribute test results and outstanding issues list report to Management, appropriate personnel. • Obtain validation sign-off forms from participant groups. • Retain exercise packets and test results for audit and regulatory reviews. • Follow up with participant groups to ensure recovery plans are updated based on test results / observations. 18
Closure / Next Exercise Date • Draft Final Summary Report and review with team in preparation for submission to Management: • Final Report is a summary of actual date, time, and results of the exercise. • Include recent upgrades or changes to the workarea/units, systems, or equipment. • List exercise objectives • Briefly note outstanding issues with resolution status and target final resolution date. • Finalize Final Summary Report. • Submit Summary Report to Management. • Ensure all issues are resolved prior to next test. • Determine and communicate next exercise date. 19
Future Testing Considerations • End-to-end process testing. • Integration of different types of plans: • Regional with workarea implications • Regional impacting numerous systems, workareas, vendors • Inclusion of new associates in process. • Participation in vendor contingency testing. • New regulatory concerns impacting recovery strategies. • Cyber-threat scenarios. • Others??? 20
??????? Questions ??????? 21