Stress-testing a network usually consists of letting the network boys stay late to play games, but when your network is a telecommunications company, stress testing and disaster recovery takes on a whole new meaning.
It’s a good idea when thinking about disaster recovery to look at contingency planning, especially for those organisations that would need to operate during a disaster. This is a different issue to transferring operations to a remote site. There are various issues in operating in a disaster environment, usually starting with electrical power but also extending to employee concerns and the need for resupply.
Disaster recovery systems are no longer something that only financial institutions are concerned with, says Jerry Vochteloo, principal technical architect at Symantec Asia-Pacific.
Most companies shouldn’t have to replicate every piece of data to protect their business from the next cataclysmic event. Nor should they necessarily have to cough up millions for a mirror site that traces every network transaction. And let’s face it, unless you’re cyber-cynical, catastrophes are extremely rare. Be that as it may, organisations are increasingly being held accountable for their data and prudence points to being prepared. Computerworld Canada asked three experts what the most commonly overlooked elements are in today’s disaster recovery plans — just in case.
Just how badly Auckland’s power outage last month affected data processing may never be known but it took out Unisys’s datacentre at Penrose for at least an hour at a time when the centre was in the middle of a major upgrade. A decision was made not to switch customers to disaster recovery after discussions between their CEOs and Unisys managing director Brett Hodgson.
Without warning, a supply chain executive from Wal-Mart told his operations and administrative staff to pretend that a particular distribution facility had burned to the ground. They had until the end of the day to figure out how to service Wal-Mart’s supermarkets without depending on the impaired facility or its displaced staff.
Current fears about a bird flu pandemic could be compared with the drama over Y2K.
Storage has become so commoditised that organisations often confuse the presence of storage technology in the computer room with a data backup plan for the business. Although storage and disaster recovery go hand-in-hand, just because you regularly backup your data doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to be able to recover it — at least not within the timeframe your CEO demands — which might turn it into an even worse disaster.
The phrase “security clearance” will become more common in general business as well as sensitive government agencies, says Unisys security consultant Terry Shubkin.
The ANZ–National Bank’s daily New Zealand-related processing is now all back in the country, following doubts expressed by the Reserve Bank about having some of it done overseas.
Murray Hobson is counting his lucky stars.
Julian Morris, senior vice president and director of IT for DraftWorldwide, experienced service disruptions and downtime after attempting to merge three disparate systems corrupted by the Nimda virus. Morris learned valuable disaster recovery (DR) lessons in the process. Here are his top 10 lessons learned.
A US-led war in Iraq that could spawn new terrorist attacks in the US could be less than two weeks away, but that hasn’t prompted many companies in the US to invest adequately in disaster recovery, according to a new study by Dataquest .
Which bits of the business can you do without? Companies need to decide which operations are most vital if things go pear-shaped, before spending any money, as they probably can’t afford to secure everything equally.
Getting back to business after a major physical or communications disruption without any repercussions is unlikely. But you can minimise the after-effects by building in plenty of backup capability and having a cover-all disaster recovery plan.