The Readiness Is All
CIO Asia Magazine ( October 2001 Issue )
By Raoul Le Blond
There is a certain antiseptic quality to modern life. We work in skyscrapers with air conditioning systems, and server rooms and computers that enable us to perform marvels with a single keystroke. It is a humdrum, comfortable routine that we have grown used to, and one that we take for granted. But what if all of that, in a single instance, were to be taken away? In a fire, in an earthquake. Or, as happened on September 11, when aircraft flown by demented individuals ploughed into the World Trade Centre towers and the Pentagon, bringing the entire civilized world to a standstill.
The human cost of that tragedy is enormous, and can never, ever be counted. But businesses are only just beginning to count the costs of rebuilding/recovering IT infrastructures and business processes. Computerworld U.S. recently reported that disaster recovery centres in the U.S. that handle the migration of key business processes and IT infrastructures such as data centres in the event of a cataclysm, saw a record 73 disaster declarations from 36 companies in and around the terrorist attack sites. I think that the incident means that we can never again say: "It will never happen to us." Whatever it may be. A fire, a typhoon, a plane flying into your office lobby. If I were a CIO, I would fire any of my staff who says, "It will never happen."
September 11 showed that the unthinkable can happen. The need for readiness for a situation like the events of September 11 has never, ever been greater. CIOs everywhere need to, if they haven't already, sit down and map out an IT disaster recovery plan in any such event. My suspicion is that Asian companies are ill-prepared and this was confirmed when I spoke to disaster recovery or business continuity planning experts at a recent seminar in Malaysia.
"When you plan for a disaster, you cannot start piecemeal, or take it on a scenario basis, like one floor has burned down in a fire," says Prabha Ramanathan, whose ISL Services Sdn Bhd does disaster recovery outsourcing for clients. "You've got to assume your entire building has been destroyed, and that you have no access to the site." Prophetic words.
What procedures do you put in place? Some tips from the experts:-
Maintain mirrors of key data centres and architectures at alternative sites, and test them. Periodically test the failover switching by testing staff. One CIO at a Hong Kong bank on a random day every month picks up the phone and says, "Failure". His staff then scramble to switch the bank's data and operating systems to another facility at the other end of the harbour.
Involve your business partners in developing similar plans, so your entire supply chain can continue functioning.
Keep lists of key personnel to activate, maintain alternative transport networks and lay plans for transporting hard copy documents and files that can be salvaged. (Ensure data is never kept on local PC drives.) Your data is precious. Ensure it is escorted from one facility to another.
Find out about having a trained disaster recovery personnel on staff. The Disaster Recovery Institute (www.dr.org) in the U.S. offers training and certification programmes.
At a time when words fail most, when we must stand at the ramparts of a new world where anything can happen, I can only end with the words of Shakespeare's Hamlet: "There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all."
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