Posted by Mark Norton on Wed, May 05, 2010
While continuing to follow the latest updates to the BP / Gulf Coast oil spill (that has claimed 11 lives and now threatens hundreds of species of wildlife along the Gulf shores, and which in 35 days is projected to be larger than the Exxon Valdez) I grew sad to learn of the underlying problem complicating this huge catastrophe that has transformed the Gulf Coast in just a few days - failure to plan.
On Saturday, May 1st, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, was still waiting for a plan from BP on how to protect the state's coast from the massive oil spill. Nine days had already passed. Over 600 National Guard soldiers were on duty to help contain the spill with another 1,000 on standby; however no one had received any marching orders. Meanwhile the oil slick continues to expand from roughly the size of Rhode Island to something closer to the size of Puerto Rico, populating the normally blue-green gulf waters with sticky, pea- to quarter-sized brown beads of oil.
The reason they are waiting is because there was never a plan. BP had no plan for a major oil spill because in 2009 the company determined it was unlikely, or virtually impossible, for an accident to occur that would lead to a giant crude oil spill and serious danger to wildlife. BP Spokesperson David Nicholas stated, "The sort of occurrence that we've seen on the Deepwater Horizon is clearly unprecedented." While I agree this event is unprecedented, I challenge their thinking that such an event was virtually impossible. Since BP did not plan adequately for a worst-case scenario, they also failed to address the kind of technology needed to control a spill at that depth of water. And so we wait...we wait for one to be developed for an event that has already happened - one whose effects are being compared to those of a Category 5 hurricane.
The results of BP's planning failure will undoubtedly have an impact on most of us. However, my hope is that we use this disaster as a reminder to the rest of us - to plan for our worst-case scenario, no matter how unlikely. I encourage everyone to take a second or third (or first!) look into your disaster recovery plans and determine if the preparation we rely on is fit to handle that virtually impossible occurrence. The historic satellite image of the oil spill on the Gulf will always serve as a reminder for me that worst-case disasters do happen and we all need to have a plan.
- Mark Norton
Associate Continuity Planner
Agility Recovery Solutions
Agility Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity Solutions
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Posted by Ben Pritchard on Wed, Dec 16, 2009
Communication saturation has become as normal and vital as
breathing, especially in the business world.
We need efficient and constant communication channels both internally
and externally for our organizations; as well as with colleagues, partners,
vendors and customers.
Put simply, communication makes our business more effective
in every way, even allowing for the stream of inappropriate and occasionally
funny emails that circulate within every office.
A communication breakdown can worsen the immediate and
lasting effects of a disaster. So, the question I have is: how will you
communicate in the midst of a crisis? How will you get your employees back to
work if you cannot get in touch with them? How will you get the resources
necessary to recover if you can't talk to your vendors? How will your business
survive if you can't reach out to your customers? If you don't have a solid answer
to these questions then your business could be circling the drain.
Don't wait until your office is a glowing hole in the ground
to start wondering how to communicate with the world. The key is planning. With
that in mind, here are a few ideas:
- Define the essential individuals you need to
communicate with i.e. employees, customers, and vendors.
- Identify appropriate and effective forms of
communication for each group.
-
Build an emergency contact list for employees
and key vendors that includes home and mobile phone numbers, personal emails,
and family contact info.
- Set-up an Alert Notification System (there are a
number of vendors out there, plus Agility provides one as part of our standard
membership). Be sure to share its purpose with employees and test the system regularly.
- Determine how you will contact your customers as
well as how they can contact you. Don't let them call in to a dead line; you'll
lose a lot of customer confidence in a very short space of time.
Once you have identified the key contacts from each group,
start working on your media choices. For example:
- Employees - text messages, emails, Twitter (see,
it does actually have its uses after all!), online message boards, phone trees
(delegate responsibilities for calling within your organization).
- Customers - in addition to emailing and Tweeting,
think about placing announcements with local newspapers, TV stations, radio stations
and your own website. If your building is still standing then put up notices
there. You should also have contact information for your customers, so email them
and, if you can, follow-up with a reassuring phone call to inform them of the
current situation and what you are doing to resolve it.
- Vendors - to be honest a combination of any of
the above would be effective. Contact them, tell them what you need, and tell
them the best ways reach you.
- For all of the above make sure you get an
effective phone redirection strategy in place and get it working as soon as
possible following a disaster. A disconnected phone line can lose you
customers, panic your employees, and even lead to your vendors allocating the
resources you need to other clients.
The caveat I would place here is that it is important not to
get carried away. If you go all out and try to do everything listed above,
things are likely to get complicated. Take
a good long look at the most effective channels of communication that are
appropriate for your business, and stick with them. Incorporate this communication
plan into your larger disaster recovery strategy, and make sure to communicate
your disaster recovery plan to the people who will be required for it to work,
and then practice it. And, as always, be prepared to improvise, adapt and
overcome.
Happy DR planning! Have a wonderful, safe and
disaster free Holiday Season!
- Ben Pritchard
Agility Recovery Solutions
Agility Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity Solutions
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Posted by Ben Pritchard on Tue, Nov 24, 2009
The concept of "going green" is not exactly new. It has
been doing the rounds for quite a while now, to the point that you would have
to be living under a rock to not have heard the impending doom that global warming will bring. The polar ice-caps are shrinking,
the atmosphere is clogged with noxious gases, meanwhile dolphins and polar
bears are quietly disappearing. The solution, it seems, is to fit your home
with a mini-power
station which runs on cow flatulence, drive a
Prius, wear hemp,
and recycle your children!
However, the days when the
warnings of environmental Armageddon
were regarded as the delirious rants of a small group of lunatics are long
gone. Whether you believe global warming to be a man-made
phenomenon or the natural
climatic cycle of our planet, you cannot escape the irrefutable truth that
mankind is participating in the destruction of its own habitat to some extent. Forests
are shrinking, oceans are dying, and breathing is, bizarrely enough, a really
bad idea in some cities.
Since this is something that
affects all of us, it follows that we should all do our bit, not just at home, but in
the business world as well. Change takes time, especially when talking about altering
processes and procedures and trying to balance it against the very raison d'être
of most businesses (whether actually admitted or not): making money.
I am not going to devote
another thousand words or so to arguing that having a social and
environmental conscience is, perhaps, more important nowadays, rather I am
going to assume I am preaching to the converted. With that assumption in mind,
let's move on.
Given that a disaster is
probably not the best time to begin implementing wholesale changes to your organization,
let's have a look at how already being green can help when it comes to a
recovery. There are a number of obvious steps you can take. For example:
The Paperless
Office - This is one of the most
frequently talked about ways of reducing your environmental footprint. Given
that estimates for paper use in the US are in the range of 10,000
sheets per office worker per year, it is no wonder. From a disaster recovery
perspective, why complicate things by having to rely on masses of printed
documents and having to fill your recovery space with paper? Take the
electronic document storage route and store your key documents online or,
better yet, at an off-site data center. Not only is it a lot easier to access
documents on a laptop rather than having to lug around multiple paper versions.
To top it off it is also less of a drain on the environment.
Server
Virtualization - IT equipment
tends to be huge consumers of power, not only because it is on all the time,
but also because it requires constant cooling and monitoring. Virtualization is
software technology which allows one server to "host" other servers. I am not
going to go into huge technical detail here because my head will explode, so the
non-technical version is that you have one server doing the job of multiple
servers. The net result is fewer physical servers = less power consumption = less
cost. Not only are you consuming less power, you are also setting yourself up for
an easier, less costly recovery, since you will need less physical resources.
Virtual
Workers - Wherever practical,
encourage employees to work from home. Not only does this reduce the energy and
resource consumption associated with commuting, it also reduces your office
energy consumption and physical footprint during a recovery.
Desktop
vs. Laptop - Yes, I am well aware
of the fact that laptops are somewhat of a status symbol in some offices. All
you status conscious bods will love this - there is an environmental and financial case for getting rid of as
many desktops as possible. Put simply (again, anything too technical and blood
will shoot from my ears), an average desktop will use around 120W for the
computer itself and another 80W for an old fashioned CRT
monitor (20W for an LCD screen). A relatively powerful laptop, on the other
hand, uses only 30W. Assuming you have desktops with LCD screens throughout
your office, if you switch to laptops you will be looking at a savings of 79%. Outside
of energy efficiency also consider that most people take their laptops home
with them every night. In the event of a disaster your employees will have them
on hand to either work from home (see above) or move to your recovery site and immediately
continue to carry on. Productivity at its max even in the immediate aftermath
of a disaster!
To sit here and write a
comprehensive list of green options would take all day not to mention it would
be so long that most of you would switch off and go for a quick chat with your
mates by the water cooler. The ideas above, however, should be enough to get
you thinking about how you can take an environmentally friendly route for your
business. As if it's not enough motivation to help save the planet, you can
save money and improve your chances
of surviving
a disaster in the process. Not too bad, eh?
- Ben Pritchard
Agility Recovery Solutions
Agility Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity Solutions
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