Maintaining business continuity during storm season and beyond

Featured article by Sumeet Sabharwal, Group Vice President and General Manager, NaviSite

Natural disasters can strike at any moment and can cause serious damage to businesses if they aren’t prepared. While the 2015 tornado season has been off to a slow start, reports show storm season is soon expected to intensify in areas of the United States.

In today’s business technology-driven environment, it’s not a matter of “if,” but “when” business will encounter a breach or breakdown in the system. While this is especially true in areas like Tornado Alley, these concerns don’t just apply to tornado season. Natural disasters and extreme weather can unexpectedly hit throughout the year, so it is critical for organizations to approach business continuity and disaster recovery (BC/DR) as a proactive vs. reactive discipline.

Business resiliency is an all-encompassing concept that must address everything from basic business continuity to high-level risk management, security and more. With today’s sophisticated IT infrastructures, BC/DR has progressed from simple backups/restores to a broad range of business resiliency services.

All too often, businesses deploy into the cloud without having a sound business BC/DR plan in place. This doesn’t mean simply inventorying servers or calculating bandwidth requirements, but delving into business requirements and understanding what the priorities are for protecting and restoring services in the event of system downtime.

There are several approaches IT business leaders can take to develop and implement a BC/DR plan from all perspectives, including network perimeter and physical security of cloud enabled IT infrastructures. Here are six steps to help lay the foundation for a strong BC/DR plan in the event of inclement weather:

1. Establish a comprehensive plan. It’s important to create a holistic plan that identifies the key business and IT assets, and the associated risk and contingency plan around each. This includes the upfront thinking to determine the acceptable levels of service during the recovery period and what processes and related applications need to be maintained or restored as a priority.

2. Audit IT application design. To ensure a resilient IT infrastructure, IT teams needs to closely audit every application within a network ecosystem. For example, the performance of a critical application may be reliant on several other applications and it is important to ensure all apps can be fully functional during a disaster. If there are any issues with resiliency, teams must re-architect their IT infrastructure to correct potential weaknesses. It is vital to have the ability to both restore and run applications to maintain business continuity during a storm.

3. Validate performance. It is important to test and retest technology infrastructure and processes to not only confirm resiliency, but also to create benchmarking standards. These benchmarks can provide an accurate measure of the time needed to recover from a disaster, as well as provide insight into the capabilities and limitations of technology.

4. Establish formal governance. As IT support staff play an integral role in maintaining network performance, it is necessary to develop a succinct process document to manage IT during disasters. The process should detail how and if support staff will need to be within close proximity of critical hardware, as well as outline tasks so every member of the IT team can assist appropriately and consistently. Enterprise organizations should also establish trainings across diverse geographies for a reliable, consistent process.

5. Stand-up ongoing monitoring. BC/DR preparedness requires regular monitoring of day-to-day IT business operations. This can help pinpoint the most critical aspects of any infrastructure and allow IT teams to develop additional safeguards for those components.

6. Leverage cloud. External cloud-based solutions provide many opportunities for an efficient, more agile and reliable IT model, particularly in instances of system distress. By leveraging such solutions, businesses can consistently benefit from flexibility, speed and control of IT. Today, the cloud is enabling real-time, offsite backups and a new standard for BC/DR. Businesses should also utilize the knowledge and expertise of technology partners to create a complete and sustainable resiliency plan.

Once a strong infrastructure and BC/DR plan is in place, there are several additional steps IT teams can take, in conjunction with their cloud/IT partners, to ensure true preparedness in the event of a natural disaster. Below is a sample checklist of the key considerations IT teams should utilize as part of managing core infrastructure reliability during an emergency.

– Create and test a disaster recovery plan;

– Backup critical data and store offsite;

– Staff an in-house disaster response team;

– Keep critical staff on standby and in close proximity to the data center by providing hotel accommodations, as needed;

– Review physical security procedures;

– Ensure critical vendors and supplies are alert and on hand; and

– Confirm emergency communication mechanisms are working.

While it is important to lay the foundation of a strong BC/DR plan, it is equally important to conduct routine evaluations of IT equipment and networks, particularly in areas or times with a higher risk of natural disasters, like tornado season. The best BC/DR programs are ongoing and continuous, receiving regular updates. Particularly with the rapid changes in technology today, businesses should always conduct a stringent review when making modifications to an overall IT infrastructure and update their BC/DR plan accordingly.

As we continue to experience extreme weather conditions, such as tornados and hurricanes, it is imperative that businesses take a proactive and multidisciplinary approach to sustaining critical IT services to prepare for and maintain business continuity during natural disasters and throughout day-to-day operations.