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The Importance of Implementing a Disaster-Recovery Plan
This article is the first in a two-part series
Disaster recovery is an important part of a business’ information technology (IT) plan. Folks in any IT department that have experienced unplanned downtime could testify to this. Many threats to IT environments exist and are lurking behind the scenes, waiting to attack at a moment’s notice. Some—like hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, etc.—are unavoidable. Others, such as user errors or viruses, may be avoided if the right tools are in place. The key is implementing a disaster-recovery plan that works.
Bristol West Holdings Inc., a leading provider of liability and physical damage insurance focusing exclusively on private passenger automobiles across the United States, has an IT department that is familiar with the importance of having a disaster-recovery plan. With 1,300 employees, the Davie, Fla.-based company has seen its share of weather-related catastrophes—the most recent of which was Hurricane Wilma in 2005.
Ralph Czekalinski, director of technical services at Bristol West, said the company has two data centers; one is in the Davie office and the other is in Independence, Ohio. When it became clear that Hurricane Wilma would strike the Florida location, the IT department went into disaster-recovery mode. The team disconnected the Davie data center from the Internet and moved all production to the Ohio data center—which was up and running within five hours of the switch—where all operations were housed for two weeks following the hurricane.
Clearly, having a company headquarters where hurricanes are a reality is an obvious reason to have an effective disaster-recovery plan. But, as Czekalinski said, it could be a hurricane or the potentially leaky plumbing located four floors above the data center that can cause an unplanned outage.
“Naturally, being in South Florida dictates that you need a working disaster-recovery plan,” said Czekalinski. “Five years ago we started a disaster-recovery project. We calculated what the loss of revenue would be to the business if our online applications were unavailable. From there we identified what applications fit into a tier one or tier two categories; Tier one meaning applications that are critical to bringing revenue into the company or those applications that support that objective.”
Lee Walkky, services practice manager at Irvine, Calif.-based Vision Solutions Inc., said having a good disaster-recovery plan is a matter of pure survival. “In today’s world, everything from consumer shopping and banking to a business’ supply chain and customer information is 24-7,” he said. “In addition, certain regulations place availability requirements on certain industries. Not having a plan to operate in the event of a disaster, whether that is as granular as a single server loss all the way up to an entire data center or site disaster, can lead to loss of revenue, loss of customers—both current and potential—penalties and loss of integrity. Depending on the severity, it can lead to going out of business.”
And Walkky should know. As services practice manager at Vision, a leading provider of high-availability, disaster-recovery and data-management solutions for the IBM System i and System p markets, he’s responsible for a team of solution architects, solution engineers and project managers whose mission is to design and implement high-availability and disaster-recovery solutions for customers. He has seen companies in all industries implement disaster-recovery plans thanks to increasing government regulations. But, he said, there’s no one industry that’s more susceptible to IT threats. “In reality, disaster-recovery plans know no boundaries.”Starting Small
A successful disaster-recovery plan does not just materialize overnight. It comes after months—even years—of planning and testing. Bristol West, for example, started with a simple plan about four years ago. “Every year we have added more and more–today we disaster recover all production applications that are considered tier one. We have one full-time employee whose job title is disaster-recovery coordinator. This is a must—it just can’t be something someone does once a year,” Czekalinski explained.
As for Vision Solutions, Walkky said nobody at the company can remember a time when there was not a disaster-recovery plan in place. “As far as we can tell, it has always been a part of our culture and processes,” he said.
Once a disaster-recovery plan is implemented, it continuously evolves. Emerging trends in technology and more threatening hackers and viruses mean IT departments must remain on the defensive when it comes to disaster recovery. “Changing environments, changing technologies and changing requirements—such as new regulations—will always affect a disaster-recovery plan,” said Walkky. “That is why a disaster-recovery plan is a living, breathing entity that needs care and feeding. A successful test one time does not mean it will be clock work the next.”
An Effective Plan
In order to have an effective disaster-recovery plan, according to Czekalinksi, an IT department must have the following: support from upper management; a step-by-step guide that is constantly being reviewed and updated; testing of the plan with live data; and vigilant follow-up testing throughout the year. Unfortunately, many times, it takes a catastrophe and significant data and money loss for companies to support bigger and better disaster-recovery plans.
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