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Disaster Planning: The Basics. TEAJF Statewide Grantee Meeting Houston July 20, 2006. Disaster Recovery Process for resuming business after a disruptive event which can include something as catastrophic as a hurricane or as relatively small as a computer virus. Business Continuity
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Disaster Planning: The Basics TEAJF Statewide Grantee Meeting Houston July 20, 2006
Disaster Recovery Process for resuming business after a disruptive event which can include something as catastrophic as a hurricane or as relatively small as a computer virus. Business Continuity A more comprehensive approach to making sure you can keep making money or providing a service regardless of external events. More palatable term for many business executives. What’s in a Name? Terms are often married under the acronym BC/DR
Business Impact Analysis • Identify the most crucial systems and processes. • Analyze the effect an outage would have on your ability to perform the service. • The more dependent the service performance is on the process, the more you will want to invest in a backup strategy for that process. • A BIA helps set a restoration sequence.
Elements of the Plan • Locating People • Communication • Establishing where they will go to work. • Establishing what processes will be used so that employees can keep doing their jobs. • Data preservation and management.
Write People into the Plan • Plan MUST establish a process for locating and communicating with employees. • Naturally, employees will put family first. • Employees may be UNABLE to make it in. • Or unable to make it OUT (safe and fed). • Need a plan that does not require immediate assistance of employees local to the event. • Counseling for the longer term: people are the business and their needs can’t be ignored.
Body of the Disaster Plan • Emergency information sheet • Introduction to the plan • Communication plan (or "telephone tree") • Institution-wide collection priorities • Prevention/protection strategy • Checklist of pre-disaster actions • Instructions for response and recovery:
Plan Appendices • Recovery team members • Collection priorities within departments, locations, and/or subject areas • Checklists for prevention/protection inspections: extra copies of forms to be used. • Resource lists • Accounting information
Plan Appendices • Response and recovery instructions • Instructions for long-term rehabilitation • Record-keeping forms • Detailed building plans
Plan Appendices • Insurance information • Location of keys
Lessons from Nimda Virus • Be Prepared. • Plan as if your IT people will be unavailable. • Prioritize. • Pick your team carefully. • Develop information-gathering templates. • Have a well-defined communication plan. • Know who your stars are. • Manage user expectations. • Remind users that there was life before the internet. • Check the pulse of your staff.
Potential Pitfalls • Inadequate planning for IT systems failures. • Failure to bring the service side into the planning and testing of your recovery efforts. • Failure to gain support from senior-level managers so that you have sufficient: • Resources to implement and test plan • Regular testing of plan • Commitment to regularly update plan