Rothstein Associates Inc. Business Survival ™ Weblog

Tennessee’s Sinking Data Center Gets Help: State began work this month on one of the new data centers that will replace it.

A data center in Tennessee that may be located in the worst spot in America for a data center — on an unstable landfill, next to a railroad and a river and downstream from a large dam that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says has a risk of failing — is getting relocated, at least partially.

Sounds like this is a data center that really needs a disaster recovery plan! See GO.RECOVER-DATACENTER for an easy-to-use, effective Data Center Disaster Recovery tool.

Business Continuity: Survey Gauges Government’s Ability to Survive Disaster

“Governments deliver some of society’s most vital services. In an emergency, citizens look to public agencies to continue providing public assistance checks and public utilities, in addition to emergency services, including medical care or shelter. In today’s technological age, governments must ensure vulnerabilities are found and mitigated before disaster strikes.”

Hurricane Season: Disaster Readiness Tips from James Lee Witt

James Lee Witt, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency under President Clinton and now a disaster recovery consultant, talks about readiness during this hurricane season.

Complete Hurricane & Flood Plan for Business: A Disaster Prevention and Recovery Template on CD-ROM is an easy-to-use template for hurricane planning.

Business Continuity: Inadequate Planning Affects CIOs

Business continuity suffers as the “ugly stepchild” of IT security.

“A survey of 200 companies with between 250 and 999 employees by Vanson Bourne found that, of the 81 percent of respondents stating that they had a business continuity plan, 50 percent had only partially tested plans and 18 percent had not tested any aspect of their plans. (1)

“A PricewaterhouseCoopers survey found that almost half of disaster recovery plans have not been tested in the last year.

“According to the Chartered Management Institute’s 2008 business continuity survey, 33 percent of organizations with a business continuity plan still do not undertake any form of exercise to test their plan.”

Improving Business Continuity Testing and Exercising

For the only book on exercising business continuity, disaster recovery, crisis management and emergency management plans, see Disaster Recovery Testing: Exercising Your Contingency Plan.

The Basics of Root Cause Analysis

Introduction

Root cause analysis (RCA) is a process designed for use in investigating and categorizing the root causes of incidents with safety, health, environmental, quality, reliability and production impacts.

Simply stated, RCA is a tool designed to help identify not only what and how an incident occurred, but also why it happened. Only when investigators are able to determine why an incident or failure occurred will they be able to specify workable corrective measures that prevent future incidents of the type observed.

Read the rest of this entry »

Iowa’s Tragic Lesson in Business Continuity

Security administrator shares lessons from recent floods

by Bill Brenner, Computerworld, July 9, 2008

“As Midwesterners recently discovered, natural disasters can strike without warning, snuffing out lives, homes and businesses.

“Deadly storms that ravaged the area last month hit too close to home for Deb Hale, security administrator at telecommunications provider Long Lines Ltd. But from the tragedy came valuable insight into the art of business continuity.”

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9108218&source=NLT_DIS&nlid=14

Emotional Terrors in the Workplace: Protecting Your Business’ Bottom Line Emotional Continuity Management in the Workplace By Vali Hawkins Mitchell, Ph.D., LMHC. Philip Jan Rothstein, FBCI, Editor.

Businesses need to make money or there will be no jobs. People need to have appropriate feelings or they will not be healthy. Sometimes those emotions - whether felt by individuals or many, whether appropriate or not - can disrupt business and mess up the bottom line. With this book, that doesn’t have to be the case.

EMOTIONAL TERRORS IN THE WORKPLACE; PROTECTING YOUR BUSINESS’ BOTTOM LINE provides practical, well-tested tools that bridge human emotional dynamics with the fiscal demands of a company.

ENDORSED BY THE BUSINESS CONTINUITY INSTITUTE (BCI)

More information

Published by Rothstein Associates, Inc.
$47.95 ISBN 1-931332-27-4
DR771.

Okay, so maybe you’re not a Funeral Director. Still…

This article by Van Carlisle, president and CEO of FireKing Security Group, New Albany, Ind (for which Philip Jan Rothstein, FBCI was interviewed and quoted) offers some common-sense -and often overlooked - suggestions for businesses to consider to protect their vital records.

http://www.fireking.com/pdf/vrp_funeral.pdf

Read the rest of this entry »

One of the challenges in IT disaster recovery planning for data centers is to make current and complete documentation available at the needed time. For years, as a backup, recovery teams have tried to figure out how hardcopy versions of parts of the documentation would be adequate and available when needed - not only for restoration procedures, but also for software loading procedures. Working with documentation that may not be current or complete can be risky.

Read the rest of this entry »

Dr. Amin Mawani of The Schulich School of Business at York University has released what it claims is the first study to assess the impact of an influenza pandemic on individual companies. The study “Making a case for investing in pandemic preparedness” was Presented at the World Conference on Disaster Management in Toronto.

It explains how companies can justify investing in pandemic planning using standard business performance metrics. The study highlights that an investment now far outweighs the potential impact that a pandemic could have on individual businesses.

http://www.schulich.yorku.ca/pandemic

If you are concerned with pandemic preparedness, Pandemic Preparation and Response Plan Template for Business on CD-ROM, by Douglas M. Henderson, FSA, CBCP Douglas M. Henderson, FSA, CBCP, is a good place to start.

Read the rest of this entry »