As part of Vigilant Guard 2008, the South Carolina National Guard put on one of the largest disaster response training exercises in the history of the National Guard. This intensive three-day exercise included more than 2,000 National Guard soldiers and airmen from more than a dozen states, members of the newly formed Beaufort County Recovery… Continue reading Beaufort County Hosts National Guards Largest Ever Disaster Response Event

It all started in the data center. Once computers became part of the business landscape, even before the introduction of personal computers on individual desks, it became pretty clear we could not return to our manual processes if our computers failed. The business model changed. The work people did with manual general ledgers in ledger… Continue reading Building an Enterprise-wide BC/DR Program

One of today’s most frequently referenced IT improvement paradigms is the shift to a services-oriented architecture (SOA). Wikipedia explains SOA as “a design for linking business and computational resources…on demand to achieve the desired results for service consumers.” When SOA concepts are applied to the world of disaster recovery, some interesting possibilities begin to emerge.… Continue reading Shifting the Emphasis: Disaster Recovery as a Service

Disaster recovery has been a fundamental offering from most storage software and hardware vendors over the last decade. However, a deeper look reveals that not all disaster recovery solutions are created equal. Most traditional disaster recovery projects require significant planning, and the additional vendor hardware and software required for most implementations makes them complex and… Continue reading Implementing a Disaster Recovery Strategy That’s Not an IT Disaster

Scott Ream is president of Virtual Corporation. Since 1994, Virtual Corporation is a business continuity consulting and software company that assists organizations with all aspects of their business continuity (BC) programs. Virtual has helped numerous geographically dispersed enterprises ensure that they can recover from business disruptions by designing and implementing sustainable business continuity programs. Headquartered… Continue reading An Interview with Scott Ream of Virtual Corporation

Geographically distributed, redundant data stores are an essential component of an effective disaster recovery and business continuity (DR/BC) solution. By preventing a local outage from compromising business operations, an organization not only assures its economic viability, but also its compliance to regulatory mandates such as Sarbanes Oxley, HIPAA, FISMA, SAS 70 and others. However, the… Continue reading Simulating Distance Effects in the Lab

Geographically distributed, redundant data stores are an essential component of an effective disaster recovery and business continuity (DR/BC) solution. By preventing a local outage from compromising business operations, an organization not only assures its economic viability, but also its compliance to regulatory mandates such as Sarbanes Oxley, HIPAA, FISMA, SAS 70 and others. However, the… Continue reading Partnerships Add Value

New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Oklahoma Governor Frank Keating, Johnson & Johnson Chairman James Burke and President Ronald Reagan are lauded as examples of leaders who inspired, comforted and led with confidence and distinction during crises. During the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building, the Tylenol poisoning and… Continue reading Crisis Communications and the CEO’s Role

With recent catastrophic world events generating a growing number of business continuity and disaster recovery plans, the demand for reliable and efficient notification systems has grown. In order to capitalize on the ever-growing need for organizations to establish a means to instantly communicate with employees during disasters, many notification companies are pushing customers toward options… Continue reading Delivering Urgent Notifications Through Telephony Ports

In order to improve coordination and communication among all levels of government and the public in the fight against terrorism, the president signed Homeland Security Presidential Directive 3 on March 12, 2002, creating the Homeland Security Advisory System (HSAS). This advisory system serves as a foundation for a common sense approach for a simple communications… Continue reading Common Sense Measures to Safeguard your Community