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Business Continuity Planning Issue
Thinking about Business Continuity is a lot like making a New Years resolution- you want to commit to it, but often overlook your goodwill commitment until something disastrous impacts your failure to follow through. The recent H1N1 outbreak has refocused many organizations on their current lack of preparedness. This month's newsletter focuses on the recent pandemic scare and the benefits of mitigating your risk exposure through a professional Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery plan.
For more on Business Continuity, visit LightEdge Consulting Services or contact bcp@lightedgeconsulting.com or 877-771-3343.
Businesses Continue to Struggle with Pandemic Planning
For years scientists, public health officials and business continuity professionals have been forecasting the "big one" - a biological threat that would cause widespread illness and high mortality rates. Recent planning and preparation has centered on the possibility that a variant of the Avian Flu(H5N1) would strike the human population, hitting the middle aged especially hard.
True to form, as nature often is, the realization of the H1N1 pandemic was much different than predicted. It was based on variation of Swine Flu, not Avian, and although the mortality rates were relatively low, the disease was hardest on healthy adults.
Though this crisis has seemed to quickly subside, it serves as a "close call" that is frequently necessary to push people to action. You're never more fixated on backing up, than right after you think you lost an important document. The same is true for continuity of operations planning. The "out of sight, out of mind" mentality makes it easy push business continuity to the back burner. When an potentially disrupting event like this occurs, there isn't time to plan. Preparation is key.
What we learned:
- Most businesses are still unprepared for a pandemic with fewer than 1/4 of businesses having completed a Business Continuity Plan.
- Simple precautions like social distancing and frequent hand washing go a long way to preventing the spread of disease.
- With wide-spread international travel no area of the world is immune.
- During the beginning of an outbreak the number of confirmed infections lags behind reality by a great deal.
- In many cases, pandemics such as H1N1 spread quickly and then die off just as quickly.
- Predicting when and where a disease is going to pop up is nearly impossible.
Compare and Contrast - Are we safer now than we were in 1918?
- Mass air transit is a particularly good vehicle for spreading a virus to distant locations very quickly. The close quarters and recirculated air create a breeding ground for viral contaminations. Because Mexico City is a popular tourist destination, this caused the virus to spread quickly to the United States and parts of Europe.
- National and International communication, including Internet, broadcast and printed news, is much more complete and timely than it has been in the past. Although this gives rise to what many consider "hype" and "sensational journalism", it does promote understanding and help to lay out responsibilities for citizens to prevent the spread of disease.
- The negative side of media coverage takes the form of a collective hysteria regarding the disease. This can take the form of increased stress, absenteeism, and/or lower levels of work productivity.
- Businesses today, especially during the current economic situation, are constantly pushing to reduce expenses, especially with regards to employees. With fewer employees responsible for all of the activities related to an organization, a pandemic or other sweeping illness can make it incredibly difficult for a business to remain operational.
- The use of technology allows many workers to telecommute for work and still remain productive. The use of telecommuting is advisable in the days prior to a localized outbreak, as well as, during the event to ensure that workers are not exposed to colleagues that may be affected by the virus.
- While infectious disease professionals today are able to more quickly diagnose the virus causing a pandemic, production of vaccine is still a six month process to manufacture and administer treatments. Unless the virus is especially virulent, mortality numbers should be low in areas with reasonable access to medical attention and administration of anti-virals.
- This does not, however, mean that businesses within the United States should be lulled into a false sense of security. Prolonged absence of key employees may be detrimental to businesses without ways for these employees to participate, even in a limited fashion, in the day to day operations of the business through VPN access, Voice and Web Conferencing, e-mail, texting and other communication.
- No one can predict the future - that is as true now as it was in 1918. In 1918 the Spanish Flu pandemic began as a mild form in the spring. As the weather improved and people were able to open windows and get outside, the pandemic subsided. In the late summer and early Fall, however, the virus mutated to a deadlier form and devastated much of the world.
H1N1 Flu Reference Links
Business Continuity Statistics
Research and statistics clearly highlight the importance of disaster recovery and business continuity planning. The following statistics illustrate this point:
- Two out of five companies that experience a disaster will go out of business in five years (Source: Gartner, 2001).
- Almost half of the companies that lose their data through disaster never re-open, and 90 percent are out of business within two years (Source: University of Texas Center for Research on Information Systems).
- 43 percent of companies that experience data disasters never reopen, and 29 percent close within two years (Source: McGladrey and Pullen).
- 80 percent of businesses without a well structured recovery plan are forced to shut down within 12 months of a flood or fire (Source: London Chamber of Commerce and Industry, 2003).
- Globally, 60 percent of 850 mid-to large-sized companies experienced from 1 hour to 24 hours of unplanned down time in the last year (Source: Veritas/EMEA, 2003)
Coming Soon - Summer Seminar Series
This summer we will be holding informative local events and webinars related to:
Business Continuity Planning
Does you business have a continuity plan? Why would you need one? What business risks can you quickly mitigate through a defined BC/DR process?
Certified Business Continuity Professionals from LightEdge Consulting Solutions will discuss how your business can reduce risks and prepare for difficult situations with the implementation and exercising of the proper business continuity plan.
Managed Backup and Recovery
With the current explosion of business storage needs, many businesses looking at steep capital costs to purchase additional storage environments. This interactive session will discuss ways to protect your critical data without the need for a large capital outlay.
Agenda
- Storage Trends and Best Practices
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- Risks and Hazards of Tape Backup
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- Advantages of Disk-based Backup
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- De-duplication Strategies
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- Managed Backup and Replication Services through LightEdge Solutions
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- Data Center Overview
(SAS-70, Redundancies and more)
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Cedar Rapids - June 17th - Veterans Memorial Stadium
Other dates to be determined
E-mail to reserve a spot or inquire about either
of our Summer Seminars
Benefits of a Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plan
There are many benefits to LightEdge Consulting Services developing and implementing a BCP and DRP for your organization. Following are just a few:
- BC and DR plans allow an organization to avoid certain risks or mitigate the impact of unavoidable disasters by:
- Minimizing potential economic loss;
- Decreasing potential exposures;
- Reducing the probability of occurrence;
- Improving the ability to recover business operations;
- Help minimize disruption of mission-critical functions and recover operations in the event of a crisis by:
- Reducing disruptions to operations;
- Ensuring organizational stability;
- Assist in identifying critical and sensitive systems;
- Provide for a pre-planned recovery by minimizing decision-making time;
- Eliminate confusion and reduce the chance of human error due to stress reactions;
- Protect an organization's assets and employees;
- Minimize potential legal liability;
- Reduce reliance on certain key individuals and functions;
- Provide training materials for new employees;
- Reduce insurance premiums;
- Satisfy regulatory requirements, if and where applicable.
Operations Risk Assessment
The steps involved in conducting an Operational Risk Assessment typically include:
 Identify Major Threats or Areas of Risk - Ask all business process owners, users, and system administrators to participate in a roundtable discussion to identify their areas of concern. Critical operations, processes, and associated assets must be identified and prioritized.
- Understand Probabilities and Impacts of Threats – Obtain information from insurance companies, the local weather service, law enforcement agencies, and other sources (including web searches). Review risk and exposure information based on actuarial data. This should include any available statistical data. A great source of information about the natural and technological threats in your geographical area is hazard identification and vulnerability analysis (HIVAs). Hazard identification is the systematic use of all available information to determine the types of disasters that might affect a geographic area, the frequency with which these disasters can occur, and the potential magnitude of their consequences. Vulnerability analysis is a process used to determine the impact these disasters and their collateral effects may have on an organization.
- Identify Risk Reduction or Mitigation Activities – Based upon the probabilities and impact, examine high probability threats to identify reduction and mitigation alternatives to create multiple solutions, when applicable. When it comes to handling risk, there are typically several courses of action. First, you can accept the risk—this means accepting that the risk can occur and that you can live with the consequences. You can also mitigate or reduce the risk to an acceptable level. Finally, you can transfer the risk; for example, you might get insurance to cover potential loss.
- Review and Determine Mitigation Strategies and Plans - After the critical assets have been identified, management must determine the acceptable risk level. In essence, you need to determine the recovery time objective (RTO) or maximum tolerable downtime for your organization. Maximum tolerable downtime is the longest period of time a business process can remain inoperable before it loses its capability to fully recover or before it severely impacts the overall business with fines, negligence suits, breach of contract suits, significant drops in stock price, and so on. Recovery time objective is the time starting from when a disaster occurs until an impacted business process must become available again. Keep in mind that some business activities are date-critical; therefore, their importance will vary during the business year. An example of such a date-critical system is a financial system at the close of a fiscal quarter.
For more information on Business Continuity Planning and the
specific needs for your company, contact LightEdge Consulting Services
at bcp@lightedgeconsulting.com or 877-771-3343.
Business Continuity Preparedness Test
Is Your Organization Prepared?
Take this simple survey to help rate your organizational resiliency. Please weight your responses using a 1 to 5 scale with 1 being ‘not at all’ to 5 being ‘high’. Then check you score against the resiliency profile at the end of this section.
Business Resiliency
| 1. How confident are you that your organization has a common understanding of the processes or functions that must be restored first and which ones can be deferred? |
| 2. Do you understand the tangible and intangible costs associated with downtime for your organization (lost productivity, revenue, penalties, reputation, etc.)? |
| 3. How confident are you that your organization could restore business processes and operations in order to maintain acceptable levels of products and services to your customers if your facilities were affected by an unscheduled event? |
| 4. How well does your organization adapt to additional compliance requirements (regulatory and contractual)? |
| 5. Have you defined who is responsible for leadership of your organization in the event those individuals are unavailable? |
| 6. Are you aware of your organization’s legal and fiduciary liability for business continuity and disaster recovery? |
| 7. Are you comfortable with your key suppliers, distributors, and customers’ ability to perform their critical processes in the event of a disruption that would affect their business? |
| 8. Have you identified a Media Point of Contact and/or prepared statements to address incidents that might cause a disruption in your work place which would draw media attention? |
Data and Information Resiliency
| 9. How confident are you that your IT organization could restore critical information or data if your primary data center or computer facilities were destroyed? |
| 10. How confident are you that your IT organization could restore critical information or data in the timeframe that the business requires it? |
| 11. How confident are you that your organization is taking the necessary steps required to protect against loss of critical information or data? |
| 12. How confident are you that your IT organization backs up critical and essential information or data frequently enough to avoid losing more data than your organization could recreate? |
| 13. How confident are you that your critical and essential computer applications would continue to be available in an extended power outage? |
Event Resiliency
| 14. How confident are you that your organization could account for and communicate with employees if normal communications (email, phone lines, etc.) are not available in your facility? |
| 15. How confident are you that your organization is prepared for operating during a pandemic (30% to 50% absenteeism for a prolong duration)? |
| 16. Does your organization have a documented technology recovery or disaster recovery plan to restore mission critical systems and data? |
| 17. Does your organization have a documented continuity plan that includes all mission critical functions, not just your information technology? |
| 18. Does your organization exercise your continuity and disaster recovery plans on a regular basis (at a minimum, annually)? |
| 19. Did exercises of your continuity and disaster recovery plans prove that you could recover and continue mission critical functions within your documented recovery time objectives? |
| 20. How confident are you that your continuity and disaster recovery plans are updated regularly to keep it current with functional and staff changes? |
Organizational Resiliency Scale
| > 90 – You have implemented many of the industry’s best practices, continue to maintain and exercise program components |
| 75 - 89 – Very good start, consider auditing your program components or perform exercises to identify development areas |
| 50 - 74 – You have a good start, you may want to seek assistance in completing necessary components of your program |
| < 50 – You are at a risk your business position, need to develop and execute a plan to implement a comprehensive Resiliency Program. |
Hosted Micr osoft SharePoint
Hosted SharePoint allows you to quickly create rich document and information sharing portals for your business without the need for any outside programming.
- Document Management
Secure central repository for all share documents in the office with functionality for check-in, check-out, version history and alerts when items are modified.
- Corporate Intranet
Complete with
announcements, Blog, discussion groups and RSS feeds.
- Project Management
Run your department more effectively with a shared hub of information including assigned tasks and status reporting.
Call 877.771.3343 or info@lightedge.com to learn more
 Hosted Microsoft Live Meeting
Microsoft Office Live Meeting is a hosted web conferencing service that connects audiences for online meetings, training sessions, software demonstrations and remote collaborative initiatives. With meeting attendees participating from their PCs, you can deliver a presentation, kick off a project, brainstorm ideas, edit files, collaborate on whiteboards, and negotiate deals at a fraction of the cost and without the hassle of travel.
- More Collaboration. Less Travel
Get more done with fewer face-to-face meetings by limiting your need for travel.
- Engage your Audience
Deliver multi-media presentations including presentation slides, live and recorded video, application sharing and audience feedback tools.
- Easy for any Meeting Size
Whether you are collaborating with a colleague in another city or presenting a business model shift to the entire company, Live Meeting is easy to simple to use.
Call 877.771.3343 or info@lightedge.com to learn more
By Jon William Toigo, InformationWeek, May 9, 2009
Disk storage is already one of the data center's biggest expenses, the cost of finished arrays keeps rising, and IDC predicts that companies' storage infrastructures will grow 300% by the end of the decade. Amid this backdrop, there's growing concern that businesses will drown in the expense of storing data.
Enter cloud storage--network-accessible storage infrastructure that evangelists promise will prevent the apocalyptic scenario envisioned above by IDC in its "Exploding Data Universe" report (sponsored by EMC). Proffering largely untested claims about huge capacity cost reductions, the elimination of labor required for storage administration and maintenance, and just-in-time provisioning of capacity on a pennies-per-terabyte basis, cloud storage providers are getting the attention of businesses large and small.
23 Apr 2009 - SearchCIO.com
Virtualization continues to receive attention in enterprise organizations wanting to reduce IT costs and create a more flexible, efficient and automated applications workload environment. Some organizations are looking at a private cloud (also called an internal cloud or corporate cloud) as an enterprise computing architecture that's protected by a firewall. But what do you know about virtualization and the private cloud? Take this quiz to find out.
By Christina Torode, Senior News Writer
21 Apr 2009 | SearchCIO.com
The hype and questions surrounding cloud computing will only increase today as VMware Inc. introduces the next version of its infrastructure, called vSphere 4, to a CIO community still grappling to understand what exactly "cloud" is. Nonetheless, some IT executives plan to implement the latest VMware product even as others follow the Microsoft Hyper-V route and consider some sophisticated cloud projects.
Data center strategy starts with the business
Linda Tucci, Senior News Writer
05.07.2009
In this recession, with companies loath to make big capital outlays, outsourcing a data center in need of an upgrade can be an attractive option for midmarket CIOs. But hard times or not, a sound data center strategy is first and foremost all about the business, as we found out talking this week with several IT chiefs.
A move to cloud computing should involve SOA and BPM
By Mike Kavis
05 May 2009 | SearchCIO.com
Cloud computing is met by many skeptics today, but during the next few years more standards will emerge and most concerns about cloud security and compliance will be addressed. Ten years from now, companies that sat on the sidelines and bypassed the cloud computing movement will find it hard to compete due to higher costs of assets, less flexibility, higher headcount and a higher ratio of maintenance versus innovation. So to take advantage of these disruptive technologies, get your house in order by decoupling business processes from your software applications, a process that will involve transformational change in the form of service-oriented architecture (SOA) and business process management (BPM).
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