Submission Deadline: July 1 This two-page questionnaire will be used in a survey of all alternative site vendors to be published in a future edition of Disaster Recovery Journal. If your organization offers alternative site services, have the appropriate person...
Napoleon Bonaparte once said, “The battlefield is a scene of constant chaos. The winner will be the one who controls that chaos, both his own and the enemies.” Organizations, government, and private sector try to control this chaos through plans and training. No...
Perhaps no industrial accident in recent memory has had such an impact on public awareness of chemical safety as the explosions at the Port of Tianjin that killed more than 170 people last year. The largest of the blasts was the equivalent of more than 21 tons of TNT...
Plan for the future. Act today for tomorrow. Be ready for what comes next. These phrases flash on our screens and in magazines more than we realize. In general, these messages are trying to get people to think about their futures (and sell something). But, for you and...
As business continuity practitioners, we should maintain an attitude of “constructive-discomfort.” This mindset should influence our view of our role in the organization, our interaction with supported teammates and staff, the artifacts we produce, and our...
One of the projects I am most excited about in 2016 is my role as BCI US Group chairperson for the Business Continuity Institutes’ 20/20 Think Tank initiative. In the title of this article, you will observe that I use the term BCM, or business continuity management....
As the digital ecosystem within enterprises proliferate, so do the cybersecurity risks and vulnerabilities. Before organizations look outside for effective governance, risk and compliance, and business continuity tools to manage this ecosystem, they also need to...
The ability to recover critical systems in a timely manner during an event is the cornerstone of any effective disaster recovery program. All too often large and small organizations fail to recover their critical infrastructure and applications because of the...
The global economy is in a significant state of disharmony involving the flow of trade between the world’s nations. This has resulted in most of the recent major economic calamities. In April 1959, then Sen. John F. Kennedy said, “The Chinese use two brush strokes to...
A successful data management organization enables the achievement of business goals and objectives efficiently and in a cost-effective manner. DM organizations which consistently achieve this have a clear, robust, and well-defined data management strategy. Overlooking...
The federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), and corresponding state laws were designed to impose liability on parties determined to be responsible for releases of hazardous substances into the environment, and the...
We truly live in an era of innovation and information. It seems like every week there is a new “must have” app or a better faster way of doing something. Research, discoveries, and information-sharing are ongoing in these fast changing times. From my perspective at...
Forrester Research and Disaster Recovery Journal have partnered to field a number of market studies in business continuity (BC), disaster recovery (DR), and overall enterprise risk management (ERM) in order to gather data for company comparison and benchmarking, to...
Have you ever received an e-mail similar to this from your security team? “Your network/domain password must be changed to protect the integrity of our data. A system breach was detected which is necessitating this change.” Now let’s assume your company doesn’t use...
Six months ago, a major U.S. health insurance leader was breached by hackers who stole access to records of upwards of 80 million customers. The stolen data comprised of names, birth dates, social security numbers, home addresses, email addresses, and employment...
How many of you have ever played the game Tetris? I have it on my iPhone, as some of you might, and it can serve as a reminder of building a resiliency program for your organization. What’s the connection? Read on! In this article, I’d like to explore the issue of...
The impact of a crisis or disaster can shake your workforce. Even if your organization has prepared ahead of time, a real-life experience can be traumatic and life-altering. The stress can take a significant toll on employee morale, health, and productivity. It is...
The road to ensuring comprehensive and reliable data protection and recovery is fraught with complexity, expense, and often confusion. For decades, the high cost of a complete data protection and recovery solution was largely out of reach to small and medium-sized...
Being prepared is more than just a scout motto. It is a must-have for any company to survive a disaster, natural or man-made. Some events come with warnings such as hurricanes and snow storms where companies can batten down the hatches and communicate with customers...
The forces of nature are as powerful as they are unpredictable, or so the story goes. The reality, in fact, is that while the specific outcomes of weather events may be difficult to determine, there exist plenty of patterns from which we can glean enough information...
Product Overview: In Case of Crisis developed by RockDove Solutions, is an award winning, fully customizable, enterprise-class mobile solution. Leveraging mobile technology, the In Case of Crisis app helps organizations make their emergency,...
How do you explain what it is you do? Do you use words like continuity, recovery, planning, contingencies, and resiliency? Are you sometimes confused over what term you should be using these days? You’re not alone – the growth and boom in our industry has resulted in...
When organizations decide to outsource a critical service, business continuity (BC) leaders must increase vigilance over third-party contractual obligations related to recovery. Recovery time objective (RTO), one of the most commonly-used terms in our profession, can...
Disasters seem all around us nowadays. Not a day goes by without some sort of disaster or terrorist attack occurring somewhere in the world filling the news. The New York Times on July 21, 2015, ran an article on a study from the Norwegian Refugee Council. The Refugee...
At this time of year, many of us are scrambling to get plans exercised to meet a calendar year commitment or deadline, so I’d like to explore the issue of continuity plans and how “actionable” they really are. This actually applies to all types of continuity plans –...
Your company’s risk landscape is constantly changing. There’s a wide scope of factors to take into account, from weather-induced regional risks to the potential chaos provoked by cybersecurity breaches. Two vendor surveys recently found that 54 percent of...
With several standards being developed and some areas overlapping, compliance requires significant effort and is mandatory. If compliance is costly, then we need to think of the cost of non-compliance, which is more costly. This article focuses on business continuity...
Regardless of what it is you have to say, there has never been a better time for any person or organization to have something to say. You have more options today than at any time in the past to get your message out, and those options can spread your message faster and...
Automats – those fast-food vending machines – were before my time. I wasn’t born in Gotham. I wasn’t raised in the Windy City. I grew up hopelessly suburban and automats were mostly out of vogue before I showed up. Still, whether seeing an automat in an old film,...
The resounding success of more than a hundred BCP/DR drills that I have done with my clients actually worries me! In delivering business continuity (BC) and disaster recovery (DR) services over the years, I have closely worked with clients in making every single...
It is hard to pick up a paper or listen to the news without being reminded of the ever-increasing amount of natural and manmade disasters occurring in today’s world. Currently, there are reports of tornadoes and flooding in the Midwest; at the end of summer, we’ll see...
How to Accelerate IT Resiliency Through Virtualization According to ESG’s most current IT spending intentions research, increasing the use of server virtualization and improving backup and recovery are consistently among today’s most important IT priorities (see...
Ah, summertime – the pace of life has slowed down a bit and it seems like everyone is out enjoying the fresh warm summer days. This time of the year is when we often find ourselves being more active, visiting with friends and family more and taking some much-needed...
Several years ago, I published an article with DRJ entitled “Facts and Stats” that listed the scales of measurement for various types of phenomena, mostly weather related. Recently, I was amazed to see a few of these have since been updated … Cyclones,...
California, the US Geological Survey and the media have inadvertently misled the public into thinking earthquakes just happen, and there is nothing to do but wait, suffer, and recover. Nothing is further from the truth. While humans have no control over Earth...
Learn about six best practices that can help your organization ensure higher service availability, protect data better, and improve system performance. Downtime of critical business services, associated data loss, and the need to maintain required performance levels...
No matter how well-prepared a region is, it is a reality that crises can and will happen. Although critical events can’t always be prevented, with proper planning and the correct systems in place the level of physical, financial, or reputational damage can be...
Information is the currency of today’s economy. It flows at lightning speed from one end of the world to the other. Reputations and profits grow or crash seemingly in hours or days. The catalyst that pushes this is how we get information from the Internet, social...
Jeff Dato is the head of regional risk and reputation (Americas) for InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG). Dato has been an active member in the business continuity industry for nearly three decades. He has authored numerous articles, is a mentor, and is highly sought...
I recently had the opportunity to participate in a business continuity event, hosted by the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, which took a close look at resilience in supply chain management. It was a wonderfully new experience, with at...
According to a recent Consumer Reports story, NYU Langone Medical Center and Bellevue Hospital had to evacuate nearly 1,000 patients when the impact of Superstorm Sandy caused power and back-up systems to fail. When Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, failing generators...
How long can the nation’s electrical power grid endure without a catastrophic event? It’s a question that energy and homeland security officials routinely ask – along with what they can do to prevent or mitigate such a calamity. Utilities and their corporate customers...
In the data-driven world we live in today, fast and reliable access to information to and from your company’s business system is critical to the survival of your business. Without a reliable infrastructure, your data is at risk. The primary focus of this critical...
Everyone loves good news and hates the bad. Hearing “yes” is great, hearing “no” is not so great. Desiring to hear “you will be getting all you asked” is human nature. It makes life better, less stressful, and often times makes your job simpler. Just like there is no...
The importance of public private partnerships in assisting in planning, response, and recovery from a disaster has long been known. Over the years you have read in this column about real-world examples of these partnerships. But I still see a reluctance of private...
Every day, CEOs ask: How are we better than our rivals? How are we going to stay better? Sound familiar? For many, the answer increasingly lies in cloud computing. Companies are embracing it enthusiastically, because cloud can help companies be more agile, lower...
DevOps is an important technology movement that is often misunderstood. It may seem like just another exotic and passing software fad. However, DevOps is gaining enough steam that it’s important to understand its impact on IT. What is DevOps and Where Did it Come...
Magic Quadrant for IT Vendor Risk Management The market for IT VRM software exists to enable the assessment, monitoring and remediation of risks arising from the use of IT vendors and IT service providers. Gartner’s first Magic Quadrant on this small but growing...
Ebola, one of the latest crisis making headlines, has become a common household word these past few years. It also sent hospitals, airports, college campuses, and other public places scrambling to put together disaster plans. Today, it’s Ebola, and tomorrow it will be...
Although this topic makes people uncomfortable when discussed, it does need to be discussed. While you have a higher chance of being hit by lightning than being involved in an active shooter incident (or “active slaughter incident” as Lt. Col. Dave Grossman calls it),...
In the early 1990s I spent several years as the director of emergency services for one of the largest federal and state office complexes in the Midwest, and within a few weeks of taking the position I found myself filling in on a weekend shift for one of my officers....
Gen. Eric Shinseki, retired chief of staff of the US Army and former secretary of veteran affairs said once, “If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.” Government leaders have wrestled with that paradox. Environmental circumstances demand...
As I step down as chairperson of the Disaster Recovery Journal’s Editorial Advisory Board (EAB), I have been thinking about what I could share that would benefit new conference attendees and professionals growing their business continuity knowledge base. If you are...
Change. Change is a good thing. But sometimes it can be a challenge to keep up with the latest changes, trends, ideas, practices and technologies in our industry. Ours is a very fluid and dynamic industry – there are always new ideas, practices, tools and...
We live in the era of instant access – always on. If a website takes too long to load, we instantly move on. If an ATM doesn’t dispense cash, it’s unacceptable. Not only have our expectations risen to astronomical heights, but so has our dependence on technology. If...
A study conducted by Osterman Research found that 43 percent of employees have accessed sensitive corporate data on their personal mobile devices while on an unsecured network at places such as airports or restaurants. Even if your organization has a secure digital...
Are businesses prepared for skyrocketing energy costs to combat extreme heat? Can Midwestern farmers handle average crop losses of up to 73 percent in the coming decades? Should businesses invest in oceanfront property that is virtually guaranteed to flood? Because of...
Managing business operational and availability risk should begin early in any application or business process lifecycle. Engage ITIL’s (information technology infrastructure library) service model to ensure that disaster recovery (DR) risks are considered from service...
DRJ Spring World 2015 attracted more than 1,100 industry practitioners, speakers, and exhibitors from around the globe to Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort in Orlando, Florida March 22-25, 2015. More than 900 paid attendees took part in the three-day event, featuring...
Dr. Nancy Welch is a district health director for the Virginia Department of Health. She has served in that role since 1976, first at the Allegheny Health District and currently at the Chesapeake and Western Tidewater Health Districts. Dr. Welch earned her medical...
Practical Guidance for Evaluating and Simplifying your Business Continuity Program Requirements This white paper offers practical guidance to help organizations navigate among a maze of regulations, guidelines and maturity models and simplify business continuity and...
Exhibitors Guide Download the Spring World Exhibit Hall Floorplan (PDF) Agility Recovery Solutions – 810, 812 Allstate Office Interiors/Swift Space – 502 American Military University – 815 Association of Contingency Planners – 808 Avalution...
Purpose: The Glossary Committee is responsible for maintaining the BCI DRJ Glossary of Business Continuity Terms. Composition: The committee includes members of the editorial advisory board, and other industry professionals who are interested in contributing to the...
Purpose: The Web Committee reviews the DRJ website and related publications and communications, on an ongoing basis, and identifies potential enhancements/corrections for review by the DRJ staff. Composition: The Web Committee consists of both Editorial Advisory Board...
Mission Statement The Career Development Committee promotes education, opportunity, inclusion, and excellence surrounding the exploration and evolution of career paths in all aspects of Business Continuity and Risk Management. Key elements of our mission include...
Can you afford to manage a business without knowing the risks? Of course not. But suppose you decide – for whatever reason – to not take risk management very seriously. What could happen? Naturally, your business could fail; that’s probably the worst case. Your...
Operational risk management (ORM) is more than knowing how to evaluate risk. It is a continuously-repeated process which includes risk assessment, risk decision-making, and implementation of risk controls that result in risk acceptance, mitigation, or avoidance. ORM...
I’m sure I write this at the start of every new year: Wow! Time sure does fly when you’re having fun! At the start of this bright new year, I’d just like to take a moment to thank you for your continued support and in believing in what we do at DRJ. This is the time...
We’ve always done it that way.” The periodic occurrence of these words within a business continuity management program (BCMP) should prompt program stakeholders to consider whether an opportunity for improvement is presenting itself. Business continuity, like all...
In late 2005, I attended an executive briefing about earthquake risk in Southern California. The presenter was Dr. Lucy Jones, a seismologist with the U.S. Geological Survey and a visiting research associate at the Seismological Laboratory of Caltech. Dr. Jones...
Adam C. Wasylyshyn is currently senior vice president and chief information officer of Watts Water Technologies. Wasylyshyn has more than 23 years of progressive executive experience within technology and operations management, profit improvements, and productivity...
It’s no secret that our climate has become increasingly volatile, producing extreme weather events more frequently and with higher intensity. When severe weather strikes, its impact can threaten the safety, functionality, and continuity of homes, businesses, and...
The situation was dire. Their colleagues had been taken hostage by an angry crowd of protesters. And, just when they thought they could take a breath and collect their thoughts, things got worse. Within minutes several Molotov cocktails had set their building ablaze....
If you’ve ever heard the adage “fail to plan, and you plan to fail,” then you have a rudimentary understanding of where the FAA failed in the air traffic control disruption experienced by Chicago airports. FAA officials should have planned for their systems to fail....
Stay in our profession for any length of time and you’ll soon get a feel for the various mindsets that often prevail throughout the populations and organizations we try so hard to serve. In some ways it’s understandable. No one wants to believe they have a need for...
With all the buzz around data protection and cloud, something seems to have been lost in space. We talk about instant, incremental, and online backups as well as data deduplication, but the focus needs to be on recovery. Doesn’t it? All of the fancy bells and whistles...
At one point your organization is going to experience some form of data loss. This can occur in a number of ways, whether through some sort of hardware or software failure, malware on your network, or an event out of your control such as a natural disaster, extended...
This summer we saw a lot of buzz around cloud, especially in the storage world. From acquisitions to price drops, to new announcements of funding and even large enterprises like Conde Nast announcing that they are closing data centers to move to the cloud, one thing...
The Seven Essential Practices for Effective BC Management This white paper describes a tested approach for successfully evolving business continuity into an organization-wide, integrated program. The seven essential practices described in the paper provide a roadmap...
Only half of UK organizations have a business continuity plan and this figure is significantly lower when it comes to small businesses with only 30 percent having a plan in place compared to 54 percent of medium sized businesses and 73 percent of large businesses....
Disaster Recovery Journal Fall World 2014 took place Sept. 7-10 at the beautiful Hilton San Diego Bayfront this year. More than 850 practitioners joined hundreds of exhibitors and board members for a total of 1,100 industry professionals at DRJ Fall World 2014. The...
Toledo, Ohio, July 2014 A green algae bloom, moved westward from normal wind patterns, hovered directly over the water intake to the Toledo drinking water intakes. The toxins from the algae are not removed by normal treatment processes, and otherwise normal...
Kathy Apple, MS, RN, FAAN, is the CEO of the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN), a position she has held since 2001. Apple brings to the table more than 39 years of experience in nursing and regulation as well as a strong commitment to the mission of...
You would be worried if you did not have fire safety and evacuation plans in your office, so why would you not put the same risk assessment strategy in place for your data? Too many businesses do not have a disaster recovery (DR) plan, so my advice is to sit down and...
Data protection includes a broad array of activities from archiving and backups, through replication and disaster recovery; all of these activities require increasingly staggering budgets to build, maintain, and manage the infrastructure that supports them. The...
Let’s face it. Cyber attackers hold the competitive edge. They have a higher motivation than the average IT professional. The salaried IT guy spends his days focused on keeping the organization productive and at the end of the day wants to get home to his family. The...
Business continuity planning software can add significant value if it complements a strong program that has management support, competent personnel, and the information necessary to establish requirements, identify strategies, and document plans. While software will...
Why is it that so few small businesses prepare for emergencies? Or is that even the right question? Maybe the question should be more along the lines of “why do so few small businesses focus on preparedness in response to the avalanche of messages prompting them to do...
The skies darken and warning sirens wail in the distance. People scramble to their shelters. Several of the curious are standing at their windows or doorways hoping to catch a glimpse of the incoming cone of devastation or thinking they may be able to film it and post...
Are you interested in learning more about Disaster Recovery Journal Editorial Advisory Board (EAB)? The EAB consists of both practitioners and vendors who provide strategic direction to DRJ staff regarding the focus, format, and content of the magazine, Website, and...
Fires. Floods. Hurricanes. Earthquakes. Unfortunately these types of natural disasters are happening all over the world, but it seems with very little attention. Perhaps this is because we’re becoming more used to natural disasters or maybe it’s because most people...
Can your business afford downtime? While the obvious, likely answer is “no,” the more important question is, “Has your business clearly defined the true cost of significant downtime?” We are not just talking about an hour without Internet access or a half-day without...
On the mighty Yukon River, residents of the remote Athabascan village of Galena (traditionally a fur trading and Cold War defense community) encountered abnormal spring weather in 2013 due to an excessively late thaw, which lead to 30 miles of the river being backed...
Master data is the information underpinning enterprise-wide operations and can include supplier information, software applications, employees, locations, and resources. Creating a master data management (MDM) capability has many challenges, however, including...
High-profile disasters like Hurricane Sandy are the consummate wake-up call for companies to finally get serious about backup and recovery. Yet as organizations look for help preparing for big, unforeseen events, they often overlook recovery practices better suited to...
Justification Kit Providing Justification for Attending A ConferenceAttending an industry conference is an excellent training tool, but getting approval to travel to and participate can sometimes be difficult. How can you justify the time off work and travel...
One overlooked key to a successful corporate disaster recovery programs is to effectively integrate business continuity plans into existing community based emergency operations strategies. There is no better way to assure both corporate and community resiliency then...
The industrial uninterruptible power supply (UPS) is the foundation of an emergency power system. Unlike the commercial UPS designed to protect critical IT loads, the industrial UPS protects critical processes, control systems, and fire/life safety systems. For...
A new handbook on Cyber Risk Oversight, designed to provide corporate directors with expert guidelines to improve their cybersecurity oversight, has been published by the American International Group (AIG), the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD), and...
Organizational resiliency has always been about building a sustainable program and maintaining it via tests and exercises. However, with growing IT and the need for changes, disaster recovery (DR) is becoming a missing link which is forgotten time and time again....
Private and public sector organizations continually realize significant security and disaster recovery command, control, and communications (C3) impacts resulting from a lack of actionable governance and processes. Diminished communications between operations staff...
High-profile security breaches and NSA spying scandals dominated the news in 2013, bringing data protection issues to the top of everyone’s mind. As this news broke, people and businesses began to question their strategies and procedures for storing large amounts of...
Today’s business environment is ripe for marketing disasters due to its dependence on technology, the speed of communication, susceptibility to natural forces, the growth of consumerism, and an increasingly litigious society. Additionally, a single hurricane or...
How to Incorporate a Timed-Phase Checklist Into Your Hurricane Response Plans This Summer Ten named storms. Four hurricanes. One intense (Category 3-4-5) hurricane. That is what some hurricane experts are predicting for this year’s season. The increasing likelihood of...
If we can glean anything from this past winter and spring, it’s that weather is becoming extremely volatile and more severe. Not only that, but regions are experiencing weather they’ve rarely ever had to worry about, such as the ice storms that hit Georgia last...
An event that affects the company occurs: a rep from IT comes to the table as a responder for security related questions … they said we’ve been hacked and records have been compromised? Even more helpful, if you could both see the disaster, let alone understand...
For anyone living in an area with hot summers, the idea of owning your own pool is an attractive proposition. Having convenient access to cool water can make the summer more bearable, and it will increase the value of your home. But this upgrade comes at a price – not...
For most business continuity programs, the response to an actual event is pretty straightforward: evaluate the impact and, if warranted, activate the related plan. What can be less straightforward is the response to an anticipated event. These are situations in which...
In responding to numerous critical incidents and mass casualty events over the past 20 years, we have observed one unwavering constant, irrespective of the type of crisis. In the immediate aftermath, what people most want and need is information. If there is even the...
Many organizations are dealing with the topic of succession planning. This is probably something which all of the readers of this article are familiar. You know, looking across an organization and taking note of staff members who are nearing the wonderful stage of...
Most recovery plans include off-site IT or data tests which involve recovering key systems and data from an off-site location. These tests protect critical information but overlook vital resources that keep your business going after a disruption has occurred such as...
I want to talk about disasters and movies. I’m not talking about movies that were disasters, like “Mars Needs Moms.” I want to talk about the similarities between preparing for a disaster and preparing for a movie. Preparing for a movie? No, I don’t mean stocking up...
You’d think that with the right intentions and a careful, attentive execution, your business continuity plan would be a success, wouldn’t you? Unfortunately, that’s not always the case. Often the smartest professionals prepare what seems to be a perfect approach for...
You, the readers of Disaster Recovery Journal, represent a broad range of disciplines – not only business continuity planning, but also the related areas of risk management, disaster recovery, emergency management, business resilience, audit, strategic planning,...
I don’t know about you, but I kind of miss summer. The long relaxing days, the quieter days at the office, the long weekends and vacations. There is something to be said for the time to sit back and appreciate how lucky we are professionally and personally. It’s also...
PPBI as many of you know created an industry award to recognize some of those whom we consider are “Best in Class.” The PPBI Best Practices Award has been a tradition at DRJ since 2002. Past recipients include Dr. Richard Klasco (our first recipient) for his response...
Strategic BCP was the star of the show at the 2014 Business Continuity Institute North America Awards as they celebrated victory in two award categories – Business Continuity Product of the Year and Industry Personality of the Year. The ceremony was held on the March...
Spring World 2014 marked the 50th conference put on by Disaster Recovery Journal. This conference was held March 30-April 2, 2014, in Orlando, Florida at Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort. DRJ Spring World 2014 attracted more than 1,250 industry practitioners, speakers...
A parent’s worst fear is that a disaster can strike that will affect their family, and I believe this concern is fully understandable. After working as a disaster recovery specialist for several years, I have seen just how much a community can change after being hit...
Many corporations have launched major enterprise content man-agement (ECM) projects over the last few years that have had mixed results. Common issues include exceeding timelines and budgets, failing to meet the user expectations that were set, and reductions from the...
When was the last time someone experienced a “good disaster?” By definition, the two terms seem mutually exclusive. Many popular thesauri list synonyms that include calamity, catastrophe, defeat, failure, and fiasco among many others. Conversely, the antonyms, or...
Leading a disaster recovery team has numerous challenges and responsibilities. Some are quite evident to the everyday observer. These include the well-documented recovery plans, exercise schedules, training programs, and overall awareness. The responsibility of...
$18 billion dollars. That’s the number estimated in damages caused by Hurricane Sandy just in the state of New York alone. With the unexpected turns that transpired amidst the super storm, all businesses were reminded of the importance of business resiliency. While...
Eric Borenstein ([email protected]) is president and executive director of the Virginia Symphony Orchestra. He holds a degree in business administration with a concentration in arts management from the State University of New York. His career has...
If you haven’t started using data recovery intelligence yet to elevate IT infrastructure uptime, then it may be time to begin. With the advent of recovery tracking technology to identify system failures throughout the enterprise, organizations now have the ability to...
Most organizations have developed business continuity and emergency preparedness plans by virtue of necessity, with many of them taking the form of thick binders, flipbooks, and extensive Web pages. While these materials are intended to help save lives, mitigate...
It’s safe to say that most of the country has experienced extremely volatile weather within the last few years. Research shows that weather patterns are, and will continue to be, increasingly volatile due to changing climate trends. Whether it’s dauntingly cold...
Design of disaster recovery (DR) solutions is sometimes defined as the art of balancing the cost of disruption against the cost of recovery. This simple and elegant definition often masks the true complexity of DR. Cost of disruption is rarely measured solely in terms...
Organizational buy-in is critical to the success of your business continuity management system (BCMS) implementation efforts. Getting all stakeholders on board at the outset will help gain the support to conduct research and follow up on findings collected. Support...
NEW TECHNOLOGY Technological progress is a wonderful thing. It allows us to change the world more with each passing year. We have instant communications, unbelievably fast data-processing, advanced materials, and design capabilities that yesterday’s engineers could...
This leads me to the contention that perhaps there is something more fundamental that is missing in the way business continuity is being marketed and perceived by potential clients! That missing link, I will argue, is none other than a lack of focus on a...
For those involved in business continuity, the attacks were a turning point. While this industry has witnessed and prepared for numerous disasters of varying magnitudes, the 9/11 terrorist attacks brought up issues that had never been considered. With the fifth...
Storage networking has come a long way in a very short time. Until recently, storage area networks (SANs) were limited to single corporate sites, but, today, SAN extension is hot. Perhaps as many as 70 percent of the world’s Fortune 1000 companies rely on...
For any business or organization, being prepared means ensuring a constant and uninterruptible source of power to remain up and running. Although we will always have to “batten down the hatches” and evacuate until threatening weather passes, businesses...
We recently marked the anniversaries of several major disasters in our history. Each of these events had a profound affect on the contingency planning industry. On Sept. 11, the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks was recognized. This somber anniversary...
After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) looked around for a standardized method of dealing with “incidents” and settled on ICS. The incident command system has been in development since the 1970s. Its...
PPBI was proud to present the Best Practices Award in March to Brandon Bond of Kaiser Permanente and in September to Rushdi A. Ariss and Ed Gabriel of Disney Worldwide Services. The deed of gift for this award reads, “This award may be given to an individual, a...
The over-representation of elderly loss of life during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita is consistent with loss on a global level. People over age 60 made up 15 percent of the New Orleans population and 75 percent of bodies found after Katrina. Forty percent of all bodies...
Data located in remote sites, home offices and laptops sits outside the central network. So called “edge data” comprises more than 60 percent of critical business data. A study by the Strategic Research Corporation estimates that 75 percent of this data is...
Most organizations take time every so often to look at who they are, where they are, who they want to be, where they want to be, and how they are going to get there. Inventing the future through corporate business planning has received significant attention at DRI...
One of the most pressing challenges for IT managers today is maintenance. How do you maintain and manage your UPSs, power distribution units, air conditioning, gen-sets, and other critical infrastructure systems? How much maintenance is enough maintenance? One of the...
In this article, I draw on some of the lessons my bank learned from last year and offer some recovery tips for other financial institutions. My advice is meant to apply not only to hurricanes, but for any type of natural disaster – such as tornadoes, floods,...
More than 1,275 attendees joined expert speakers and exhibitors for a total of 1,675 people at the Sheraton San Diego Hotel and Marina for the Disaster Recovery Journal Fall World 2006 conference Sept. 17-20. More than 1,275 attendees joined expert speakers and...
During the Disaster Recovery Journal’s 35th semi-annual conference in San Diego this September, quite a few of the speakers referred to the “crisis management plan.” This led me into having a number of discussions with various conference attendees...
Pandemics are among the natural disaster threats that have been recently added to the list of serious potential threats to business continuity as well as the health and safety of employees. It is also one of the most ancient risks that humans have endured on planet...
The development of regional public/private partnerships within the financial sector is the latest example of this leadership. ChicagoFIRST formed in 2003 as the first such regional partnership, building relationships among its competitor-members and between the...
There is nothing wrong with disaster recovery; it remains an integral part of business continuity. But disaster recovery is only one part of a true business continuity plan, and, I contend, only an enterprise plan is a true business continuity plan. Business...
From architecture and space planning to equipment selection and installation, financial planning and construction management, to operations management, this article covers some of the steps that could be involved with architecting, engineering, and constructing a...
In an effort to learn more about the current efforts of preparedness planning for pandemic threats we conducted the Pepperdine University/DRJ Avian Flu Preparedness survey at DRJ Spring World 2006. Pepperdine, DRJ: 2006 Pandemic Preparedness Survey Results By ROBERT...
In October, 2005, Gartner partnered with Disaster Recovery Journal to conduct a survey on the topic of business continuity management and disaster recovery. 2005 BCM/DR Survey Results From Gartner, DRJ By ROBERTA J. WITTY, CISSP In October, 2005, Gartner conducted a...
Whether using a service provider or going in-house, disaster recovery comes down to flexible, well managed practices. Tape vaulting services from business continuity service providers (BCPs) have traditionally provided the last line of defense for many companies’...
If 2004 was the year of the monkey, then 2005 must have been the year of the disaster. The year began with the aftermath and recovery of the earthquake and subsequent tsunami that hit Indonesia and other surrounding countries. The year that followed included...
Managing the availability of mission critical systems requires an understanding of the risks and costs of losing access to business critical information or services balanced against the cost of achieving a certain level of availability. That balance is shifting toward...
Can small businesses recover from significant disasters? The answer depends on a number of variables such as the size of the business, its location, its financial strength, and the direct and indirect effects of the event. Did you know there were approximately 22.9...
As I am writing this column, I find it difficult to settle on one topic. There have been so many recent events that have caught my eye and are relevant to the business continuity field. It seems there is a new disaster or development every day in the newspapers and on...
I was coming home from the gym when I heard a news report on the radio. It was a typical report about tornados that had touched down earlier that day. The reporter was giving the lead in to the story before the broadcast of a statement from a weather “expert.” I was...
The best disaster recovery (DR) plan becomes problematic if little or nothing is done to prevent or limit the impact of disasters before they occur. Disaster recovery plans are strengthened by a pre-disaster program of physical security in place prior to the advent of...
An influenza pandemic presents a unique threat to businesses and a unique challenge for continuity planners. The purpose of this article will be to discuss approaches to the kinds of challenges presented by an influenza pandemic and presenting ways to address those...
At the DRJ Fall World 2005 conference a group met to review the Generally Accepted Practices (GAP) document relating to “Developing Business Continuity Strategies.” This was shortly after Hurricane Katrina, one of the deadliest and costliest hurricanes in history....
Current information suggests the Avian flu H5N1 could in all likelihood mutate into a communicable virus among humans. Rather than the limited geographical targets of a natural disaster or terrorism, where the majority of the damage would be to infrastructure and...
The passage on the left was written in the late 1980s after a series of disasters thrust the issue of corporate crisis management onto center stage. With the Exxon-Valdez spill, the Bhopal India chemical release, the Tylenol tamperings, and the space shuttle disaster,...
Most people are aware that the National Incident Management System/Incident Command System (NIMS/ICS) was developed, refined, and is used heavily by public sector entities. These include the federal Department of Homeland Security, state and county Emergency...
As gulf coast businesses evaluate the effectiveness of their disaster recovery plans after Hurricane Katrina, a major area of focus will no doubt be data protection. As most know, a solid and secure data back-up procedure is a necessary part of any disaster recovery...
If you work in business continuity long enough, you will see new threats appear and become the focus of this year’s conferences, sales pitches, and marketing. Some of this is justified and a correct reaction to a new threat. Others are hype and in an industry led by...
Server relocations and data center consolidation can deliver significant benefits – including enhanced business continuity, optimized disaster recovery schemes, cost savings, better service management, and improved regulatory compliance. But the risk associated with...
Virtualization technology presents a classic dilemma for IT departments. On the positive side, virtualization offers clear economic and operational benefits for consolidating servers, supporting legacy applications, and managing pre-production test environments. Yet...
Consider this scenario. At least one-third of your employees have called in sick over the past two weeks. Another 15 percent of your employees cannot return to work due to caring for other sick family members, closure of schools, or closure of daycare facilities....
Concerns over a possible pandemic continue to capture the attention of almost every segment of society. In recent months, experts have warned that the world is overdue for a pandemic occurrence. The last severe one struck the United States in 1918, with milder...
Kelvin “Kelly” Kelkenberg serves as director of the National Preparedness Division of the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency for Region IV. Kelkenberg oversees the region’s Continuity of Operations Program, Remedial Action Management...
I’ve been in the business continuity planning field for about a dozen years. During that time I’ve read a plethora of material on BCP. For the most part it boils down to one or more “best practices,” with the author focusing in on one or two approaches that may work....
Do You Have A Question or Concern for a CEO, CFO or Other Executive? DRJ is actively seeking input of questions to be used in our General Session 3, Monday, March 31 at Spring World 2014. This session will feature experts from our Senior Advanced Track in a panel...
A Practical Guide to Cost–Effective Disaster Recovery Planning Organizations across the globe are finding disaster recovery increasingly important for a number of reasons. With the two traditional approaches to disaster recovery— workload mirroring and removable-media...
Communications How Does it Work? Mobile Recovery Solutions Bandwidth you Need Planning Communications — A Necessity in an Environment Our entire national infrastructure relies on communications in one form or another to survive. We use e–mail, phone, fax, and cellular...
Disaster Recovery Services Questionnaire This questionnaire will be used in a survey of vendors who provide services other than those published in previous Disaster Recovery Journal surveys. This Disaster Recovery Services survey covers every service, except...
Mass Notification for Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Intelligent Notification It is an important part of business continuity and disaster recovery planning and can keep your teams in touch when operations are threatened or interrupted. Business continuity...
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