Great Expectations  All too often, Recovery Planning projects begin with great expectations but end in disillusionment. Cost overruns, missed deadlines, staffing problems, and a plan that is outdated even before the ink is dry, are just a few of the pitfalls that can plague the unwary Recovery Planner. For the benefit of those responsible for… Continue reading Manage the Recovery Planning Project Part 1 & 2

Once upon a time in the very distant past, disaster recovery planning was not something that you worried about. That is, if you thought about it, or even heard the terminology. Things were basically taken for granted, (that) someone was looking after ‘that’, or ‘it’ will take care of itself. No one lost any sleep… Continue reading DR/BC Planning and Employee Awareness

The time has finally arrived for business continuity planning professionals and the industry to abandon several misconceptions about senior management’s views and attitudes towards business continuity planning. Such misconceptions include, but are not limited to, the following: 1. Senior management believes that disaster only happens to the ‘other guy!’ 2. Senior management is not aware… Continue reading Enhaning Senior Management Awareness and Gaining Its Commitment to Business Continuity Planning

The need for training business continuity teams is well recognized by the business continuity industry. Certification courses, seminars, professional practice standards, and other authoritative bodies explicitly state requirements for training business continuity teams. However, these prescriptions call for training those individuals who have been charged with the development of the plan. Furthermore, the recommended training… Continue reading Training Your BC Teams

Your organization’s contingency plan documents have been assembled and distributed. The important parts of the business have been identified and contracts established for alternate sites or services. Now, if some natural or man caused event interrupts business, how do we ensure all this work will be used correctly? In major disasters, storm, flood, or fire… Continue reading Putting the Plan in Motion: A Checklist

In the evening of Wednesday, January 15, 1992, Bluebonnet Savings Bank (BSB) in Dallas, Texas, got to demonstrate first-hand a key DR maxim: a “disaster” should not be thought of only as an external event that strikes computer operations. Rather, a disaster is anything that interrupts the continuity of business operations. And when disaster struck,… Continue reading The Test That Wasn’t a Test

You’re sitting at your desk reviewing a copy of your Disaster Recovery Plan when the phone rings, “Hey Joe, did you test your plan with a mock disaster yet?” You shrug your shoulders a little and answer, “Not yet Frank, my people have been pulled off the disaster recovery project to work on other top… Continue reading Testing Your Plan

Business recovery planners agree: plan testing is essential to the planning process. Unfortunately, many companies limit business recovery plan (BRP) testing to their mainframe, LAN, and telecommunications systems. At CUNA Mutual Group in Madison, Wisconsin, we recently executed a full-scale business recovery test of all the components essential for a full and successful recovery. Local… Continue reading Full Scale Business DR Testing

Over the years, I have been asked many questions regarding the best option or recommended option to use for a company’s recovery site. As we are all aware, selecting the best site for a recovery center is difficult. Budgets cannot always afford the most secure ones, and our anxieties cannot afford the least expensive. What… Continue reading Which Remote Site Strategy is Best For You?

Because your business survival may depend on the availability of time-sensitive business information – how thoroughly do you pre-qualify your off-site storage vendor, alternate storage location or in-house vault or backup location? What technical standards criteria do you use? Without the data, there is no recovery, but storing critical information off-site requires more than just… Continue reading Vital Records Protection Issues