Disasters can come in all shapes and sizes, from natural disasters (floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes) to emergencies resulting from an accident (burst water pipe), deferred maintenance (leaking roof), or negligence (fire or mold). An effective response will be determined by how well prepared you are to deal with a disaster.
Disaster planning is an essential component of preserving your institution’s collections. With a written disaster plan, libraries, archives, museums, historical societies, and other collection-holding institutions can reduce the risk of disaster and minimize losses. The Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Template is perfect for small and medium-sized institutions that do not have in-house preservation staff.The Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Templateis also valuable for large enterprises that need to develop separate but related plans for multiple buildings, locations, or branches.
This Disaster Recovery Planning
can be used as a Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Plan template for any enterprise. The Disaster Recovery template and
supporting material have been updated to be Sarbanes-Oxley and HIPAA
compliant. The Disaster Planning Template comes as a Word document
and includes:
Disaster Recovery Plan and Business Continuity Template
Business and IT Impact Analysis Questionnaire
Work Plan
Disaster Recovery / Business Continuity Audit Program
Incident Communication Plan
Features of the template include:
Compliance with ISO
27001, ISO 27002 (formerly ISO 17799), ISO 27031, HIPAA, PCI, Sarbanes-Oxley and HIPAA standards
Web Site Disaster Recovery Planning Form
Department Disaster Recovery Activation Workbook
Quick Reference Guide
Team Alert List (Form)
DRP Team Responsibilities
DRP Team Checklist
Critical Function(s) Definition
Normal Business Hour Response Procedures
After Hours Response Procedures
DRP Location(s) Definition
DRP Recovery Procedures
Notification Procedures
Notification Call List (Form)
Updated Business and IT Impact Analysis Questionnaire
Vendor Disaster Recovery Questionnaire
Vendor Phone List Form Updated
Key Customer Notification Form
Critical Resources to be Retrieved Form
Business Continuity Off-Site Materials Form
The premium edition contains full job descriptions. They are:
Chief Information Officer
Chief Security Officer
Chief Compliance Officer
VP Strategy and Architecture
Director Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
Director e-Commerce
Director Media Communications
Manager Disaster Recovery
Manager Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
Disaster Recovery Coordinator
Disaster Recovery - Special Projects Supervisor
Manager Database
Capacity Planning Supervisor
Manager Media Library Suppor
Manager Site Management
Pandemic Coordinator
The DRP template is over
200 pages and includes everything needed to
customize the Disaster Recovery Plan to fit your specific
requirement. The electronic document includes proven written text
and examples for the following major sections of a disaster recovery
plan:
Plan Introduction
Business Impact Analysis - including a sample impact matrix
DRP Organization Responsibilities pre and post disaster - drp
checklist
Backup Strategy for Data Centers, Departmental File Servers,
Wireless Network servers, Data at Outsourced Sites, Desktops (In
office and "at home"), Laptops and PDA's.
Recovery Strategy including approach, escalation plan process
and decision points
Disaster Recovery Procedures in a check list format
Plan Administration Process
Technical Appendix including definition of necessary phone
numbers and contact points
Job Description for Disaster Recovery Manager (3 pages long) -
entire disaster recovery team job descriptions are available.
Work Plan to modify and implement the template. Included is a
list of deliverables for each task. (Risk Assessment and
Vulnerability Assessment)
There is a extensive section that show how a full test of the DRP
can be conducted. It includes
Disaster Recovery Manager Responsibilities
Distribution of the Disaster Recovery Plan
Maintenance of the Business Impact Analysis
Training of the Disaster Recovery Team
Testing of the Disaster Recovery Plan
Evaluation of the Disaster Recovery Plan Tests
Maintenance of the Disaster Recovery Plan
Click on the link below to get the DRP/BC sample pages now and make
it a part of your disaster recovery toolkit.
Testimonials
Testimonial - Dave Baker - City of Hamilton - I have found
the DRP template invaluable!
Testimonial - Bob Rifenbury -MCSE/CCNA Lauch
Testing Lab - The DRP Template saved me about 6 months of work!
Testimonial - Kelly Keeler - Martin's Point Health Care -I have received and I began using the template
immediately. IT IS GREAT! Made this process a snap for me. Cut my
documentation time down from. weeks to hours! This document has made,
what began to be an overwhelming process turn into a snap!
Testimonial - Juan Stamos - Mexico City
Corporation - We had a DRP in place, but
needed a more user friendly structure. The Disaster Recovery Template (Gold
edition) has that structure. It was very easy to quickly move our DRP into
Janco's DRP Template -- a real added value.
* Update service is for 12 months unless it is purchased within 30
days of the purchase of the Template. Janco reserves the right
to validate purchase of the customer was made for the template.
Major Disaster Recovery Failure with an Outsource Provider
February 11th, 2012
Virginia's Department of Motor Vehicles along with 25 other state
agencies hasn't been able to process requests for licenses and ID cards.
These systems are supposed to be up and running six days after the outages
started to appear.Northrop Grumman manages Virginia's IT infrastructure
under a $2.3 billion IT services contract.
The Virginia Information Technologies Agency (VITA) said in a statement that
teams have been working throughout the weekend to restore data. In a nutshell,
the IT infrastructure
of the state of Virginia was reportedly crushed by an EMC storage area
network failure. The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that several systems are
still down. The same paper said that Northrop Grumman will have to pay a fine
for the failure. And the real kicker is that recently revised its contract with
Northrop Grumman and extended the deal for three years. The state paid an
additional $236 million for better service from Northrop Grumman.
Highlights of the Revised Contract - Operational Efficiencies
Consolidates and strengthens Performance Level Standards with a 15%
increase in penalties across the board if Northrop Grumman fails to perform on
clearly identified and measured performance standards. - PAY-UP
Improves Incident Response teams to determine technology failures and
expedite repair - FAILED
Institutes clear performance measurements for Northrop Grumman that
agencies can easily track - FAILED
Adds new services to contract such as improved disaster recovery and
enhanced security features - FAILED
Among the key parts of the VITA statement:
Successful repair to the storage system hardware is complete, and all but
three or possibly four agencies out of the 26 agency systems have been restored.
Agencies continue to perform verification testing.
Progress continues, but work is not yet complete for the three or four
agencies that have some of the largest and most complex databases. These
databases make the restoration process extremely time consuming. The unfortunate
result is the agencies will not be able to process some customer transactions
until additional testing and validation are complete.
According to the manufacturer of the storage system (EMC), the events that
led to the outage appear to be unprecedented. The manufacturer reports that the
system and its underlying technology have an exemplary history of reliability,
industry-leading data availability of more than 99.999% and no similar failure
in one billion hours of run time.
The outage was blamed on the failure of two circuit boards installed and
maintained by EMC. It is a big disconcerting that two circuit boards can bring
down a states IT infrastructure for nearly a week.
Among the things that don't add up in the Virginia IT outage:
Why wouldn't these boards be replaced quickly?
Why was there a single point of failure?
Service was restored for 16 agencies, but 10 require a lengthy restoration
of data. Where was the disaster planning? After all, Northrop Grumman touted
its disaster recovery for the state just two years ago.
When it comes to disaster recovery, rapidly growing data volumes, distributed
computing models, and new technologies all combine to present an ever-changing
playing field. Safe recovery distances can also mean painfully slow replication
and backup across the WAN in addition to the costs to accomplish this.
Janco's "Disaster
Recovery and Business Continuity Template" leads the way to implementation
of the latest disaster recovery technologies and cost savings strategies.
Enterprise of all sizes can build a functional disaster recovery plan with this
tool and make your own disaster recovery efforts more
efficient.
The Business Continuity Planning is about more than the IT components. Though
the CEO and executive staff must define what business processes need protection
and the appropriate response.
IT has several innate characteristics that make them well suited to disaster
planning and implementation.
Project planning: IT is accustomed to implementing new
technology in a controlled fashion, giving IT staff experience in
understanding and planning for the impact of change for maximum success.
People/Process/technology relationship understanding: Two
areas in which having an understanding of this relationship are key to
success. The implementation of new technology often changes process. Changes
in process change the ways people interact with information systems. From
advanced computers and applications to systems that allow physical building
access, IT understands the people/process/technology relationship better than
any other team in the company. In addition, IT also has a deep understanding
of how supporting systems are critical to the delivery of, and access to
primary information systems. From Active Directory and DHCP to routers and
firewalls, IT understands the key systems and the order in which they must be
restored to deliver a complete service. This understanding facilitates
business continuity and restoration.
Experienced in disaster management: In complex IT
environments, something is usually broken or has a problem. IT has the
experience to quickly identify the problem, understand the impact and respond
appropriately to the issue. This experience is vital in the high stress and
dynamic environment of managing a disaster event.
Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity a critical part of enterprise operations
January 8th, 2012
Disaster recovery is becoming an increasingly important aspect of enterprise
computing. As devices, systems, and networks become ever more complex, there are
simply more things that can go wrong. As a consequence, recovery plans have also
become more complex. According to Janco
Associates (the author of the Disaster Recovery Business Continuity
Template). For example, fifteen or twenty years ago if there was a threat to
systems from a fire, a disaster recovery plan might consist of powering down the
mainframe and other computers before the sprinkler system came on,
disassembling components, and subsequently drying circuit boards in the parking
lot with a hair dryer. Current enterprise systems tend to be too large and
complicated for such simple and hands-on approaches, however, and interruption
of service or loss of data can have serious financial impact, whether directly
or through loss of customer confidence.
Appropriate plans vary from one enterprise to another, depending on variables
such as the type of business, the processes involved, and the level of security
needed. Disaster recovery planning may be developed within an organization or
purchased as a software application or a service. It is not unusual for an
enterprise to spend 25% of its information technology budget on disaster
recovery.
Nevertheless, the consensus within the DR industry is that most enterprises
are still ill-prepared for a disaster. According to the Janco Associates Disaster
Recover Business Continuity web site, Despite the number of very public
disasters since 9/11, still only about 50 percent of companies report having a
disaster recovery plan. Of those that do, nearly half have never tested their
plan, which is tantamount to not having one at all.
eCommerace mandates business continuity management
December 14th, 2011
There's little doubt that business continuity management (BCM) must be front
and center for today's payment card issuers : the potential cost implications of
an unmanaged catastrophic incident within the supply chain for payment card
issuers can run into millions of Euros and cause wide-ranging reputational
issues that may impact customer growth.
The
general lack of preparedness for disasters and business interuptions is
surprising in light of the fact that 40% of users feel like they would
never be able to recover, recreate or repurchase all of their documents and
files if their personal computer crashed. Its even more surprising considering
the insights that the study uncovered regarding the significant value many
assign to their digital content, including:
It is More Valuable Than Vacation Time
It is Even More Precious Than My Wedding Ring
I would Pay Dearly to Get My Data Back
I would Sacrifice Something I Love to Save My
Data
Users Place Too Much Trust in Their Hard Drives
Users are surprisingly trusting of their computer hard drives, particularly
taking into account that over half have lost all of their personal files in a
computer crash at some point. According to study, 82% of users keep
electronic files only and the majority of these files are nowhere else but on
their computer hard drive. The most popular files people store digitally are
photos (55%), music (46%), resumes (42%), addresses (28%), phone numbers (27%),
and financial documents (22%). Notably, the average user surveyed has more than
$400 of digital music and movies on their computers and that, for one in four,
the music and movies are worth more than the computer itself.
A report into business continuity and disaster recovery budgets
finds:
According to a IT budget survey, 32 percent of enterprises had planned to
increase spending on business continuity and disaster recovery by at least 5
percent in 2011. The reality is that budgets have stayed constant rather than
increased as anticipated.
Business continuity and disaster recovery budgets in 2011 have been an
average of six percent of IT operating and capital budgets.
The likely culprit in stalled business continuity and disaster recovery
spending is the continuing economic uncertainty. Even in the best of economic
times, it's difficult to build the business case for an initiative such as
business continuity that's primarily about cost avoidance rather than return
on investment. In tough economic times, it's almost impossible.
