Actor Mickey Rooney once said, “You always pass failure on your way to success.” It has been said frequently over the past few months, as our economy has taken a significant downturn and most companies are cutting back dramatically on expenses, that business continuity planning (and in some cases planners themselves) will inevitably be hit… Continue reading Certification More Important Than Ever

Today, business owners are faced with increased and ever changing threats. Power outages, acts of God, fires, floods, computer hackers, virus attacks and even smaller interruptions can only equal one thing … unplanned downtime. Whether it’s an environment-related catastrophe or small neighborhood blackout, these interruptions can cost your company thousands upon thousands of dollars in… Continue reading Hosted Phone Systems Provide DR for Communications

Despite the longstanding goal of convergence and series of innovations designed to achieve it, the typical, contemporary data center remains a hodgepodge of heterogeneous Layer 2 protocols and standards. It is likely to stay that way for the foreseeable future. Still, the various protocol innovations that have been developed in the pursuit of convergence –… Continue reading (Still) On the Road to Convergence

In response to a Global Strategy Group survey, 85 percent of New Yorkers answered that they felt it was likely that a widespread power outage would occur in the next decade. However, how many of them do you think consider themselves very prepared in the event of an emergency such as a natural disaster, fire,… Continue reading What Today’s Businesses are Doing to Protect Their Future

If you are responsible for the IT operations of a successful organization there will come a day when the closet in the back of your corporate office will no longer suffice as your data center. You will be tasked to evaluate and select a data center to serve as a business continuity or disaster recovery… Continue reading Choosing A Data Center

The following illustration shows the five-year cost performance of a hot-site agreement versus just-in-time (JIT), provisioning model applied to a mid-sized organization. The illustration compares two recovery tactics that are at different ends of the recovery option strategy spectrum and is designed as an illustration that will allow the reader to consider their individual choices… Continue reading What’s the Real Cost of Disaster Recovery?

The Great Alaska Earthquake of 1964 was the most powerful recorded earthquake in U.S. and North American history. With a magnitude of 9.2 and aftershocks lasting for 18 months, damage totaled $2.08 billion in current U.S. dollars. Alaska isn’t the only region at risk of such a disaster. A subduction zone earthquake like the one… Continue reading Protecting a Region’s Infrastructure Assets

Tony Scott is corporate vice president and the chief Information officer (CIO) for Microsoft. In addition to information technology efforts, Scott is also the executive sponsor for Microsoft’s operational enterprise risk management (OERM) efforts including enterprise program framework, information security risks, enterprise business continuity, enterprise crisis management and pandemic planning. Scott has a bachelor of… Continue reading An Interview with Microsoft CIO Tony Scott on Operational Risk

What mistakes will cause emergency communication systems to undergo excessive stress or possibly fail in a disaster, and what steps should be taken to improve performance? One of the biggest challenges for emergency communication centers is the wide range of situations that require responses – including man-made emergencies and natural disasters. Many of the best-known… Continue reading Five Best Practices, Five Frequent Mistakes

Steps Integral to Healthy Rebuilding Industry leaders and government officials are not only witnesses but instrumental players in the emerging paradigm shift in the emergency management field. In regions prone to hurricane and tropical storm activity, the tide is turning away from traditional policies based on practical approaches of preparation and response to long-term recovery.… Continue reading Navigating the Road to Recovery