The horrific crisis in Japan is a clear reminder to IT managers about their own business continuity systems and how well-prepared they are for such an event.

Continue reading Japan Quake Serves as Wakeup Call for IT Managers

Tags: data center, Disaster Recovery, earthquake, I.T. DIsaster Recovery, Japan, tsunami

It is frightening to watch what’s going on with Japan’s nuclear plant at Fukushima. It is also worrying to watch the fear racing around the world as a result of those events, fear that in some cases is far in excess of what’s going on, or even the worst case scenarios of what might happen.

The Japanese are facing the danger of a meltdown and release of dangerous amounts of radiation into the environment.

But the world is facing the risk of getting the risk of nuclear power wrong, and raising the overall risk to public and environmental health far more in the process. It is vitally important to keep our fears in perspective as we weigh all our energy choices in a world confronted both by climate change, and by several hundred thousand premature deaths from local particulate pollution from burning fossil fuels each year.

As powerful a tool as our risk perception system is for keeping us safe in general, sometimes that instinctive/emotional system can get risk wrong, in dangerous ways. We need to watch events in Japan, and watch what we say and how we feel about those events, if we want to make the healthiest possible choices about how to keep ourselves safe.

See Beware the fear of nuclear….FEAR! by David Ropeik for Scientific American.

Tags: earthquake, fear, Japan, nuclear, psychology, radiation, risk, tsunami

Just over a week after the massive earthquake hit the sprawling Texas Instruments chip plant in Tsuchiura, Japan , a gardener is reworking the Japanese garden in an inner courtyard of the office tower attached to the plant.

Continue reading Disasters show flaws in just-in-time production

Tags: Business Continuity, earthquake, Japan, JIT, just-in-time, supply chain, tsunami

The BCI are pleased to announce that the BCM World Conference and Exhibition is now open for registrations at the Super Early Bird Rate which is £250 discount off the standard rate.

The event, which will take place on the 9th and 10th November 2011 at Olympia in London, UK, is the premier event in the industry calendar with a Conference that caters for all levels of practitioner across a variety of areas and a free to attend Exhibition of over 50 stands which incorporates a number of seminars and opportunities for vendors to showcase their products and services.

For more information on the event and to book your discounted delegates places, please visit www.bcm2011.com.

We look forward to receiving your registration and seeing you in November.

Tags: bci, Business Continuity Institute, conference

The Business Continuity Institute is pleased to request the submission of papers to be presented at the BCM World Conference and Exhibition which will be held on the 9th and 10th November 2011 in London, UK.

The program will feature three streams catering for those embarking on BCM as a career or looking to brush up their core skills, up to the most experienced practitioner. These streams will come together in plenary sessions to examine industry wide ideas and issues.

For more information on the subjects covered during the Conference and the call for papers, please click here.

The deadline for papers is approaching fast (Thursday April 7th 2011) so please send your submissions to lucy.burns@thebci.org when they are ready. We look forward to receiving your papers.

Tags: bci, BCM World Conference, Business Continuity Institute

For a second year, extremes of weather have caused widespread disruption amongst survey responders; in particular the cold-snap, with only eight percent of those surveyed saying that it had no effect on their business. This has meant that extreme weather has, for the second year running, been the most persistent disruptive challenge, ahead of IT failure.

Continue reading Managing Threats in a Dangerous World The 2011 Business Continuity Management Survey

Tags: Business Continuity, Chartered Management Institute, CMI, survey

CDW LLC, a provider of technology solutions to business, government, education and healthcare, announced the results of its Business Continuity Straw Poll, based on a survey of 200 Information Technology (IT) decision makers at medium and large U.S. businesses, each of which experienced significant network disruptions since July 2009. The survey investigated how their businesses reacted to the disruptions and the measures they are taking to improve their business continuity and disaster recovery (BC/DR) capabilities for the future.

Continue reading 2010 CDW Business Continuity Straw Poll: Resiliency Plans Don’t Align with Reality

Tags: Business Continuity, CDW, Disaster Recovery, network disruptions, survey

Compared to a year ago, small businesses feel more confident in dealing with such major disruptions to their business such as the heavy snowfalls across the UK in January and December 2010.

Continue reading Are SMEs winning the battle against business disruption or are too many still being caught out? asks Citrix Online survey

Tags: Citrix, survey

This exciting, new, PC-ready multimedia set provides Exercise Managers with all the creative content they need to run an effective and credible desktop exercise!

This exercise toolkit consists of versatile and easy-to-use fire and flood film footage, sound effects, audio playlets, handouts and freshly designed web based injects, specifically created to bring your fire and flood scenarios to life.

Each kit begins with the onset of an incident, moves onto the incident unfolding and then the aftermath. At each stage, a combination of clips can be used to complement and enhance your story – from news reports and bulletins, clips from press, relatives and third party suppliers to specially created sound effect montages and fictitious online news pages.

Each set provides your organization with a flexible range of engaging and thought-provoking injects in a phase-by-phase framework. Exercise Managers can select appropriate audio, film and print injects according to their scenario Master Events List or use the injects for inspiration and create a scenario events list around them. The selected injects can then be downloaded and embedded into a presentation or played from a desktop. So, using the material on the discs, Exercise Directors can tailor their exercises to suit the specific training needs of their business.

The toolkit scripts conveniently have generic references such as ‘the city’, the ‘city centre’, and ‘the area’, to enable the material to apply to as wide an audience as possible. References are universal in their appeal, versatile in their use.

Each disc in the Multimedia Exercising Set includes:

• Film clips and ‘from-the-scene’ film news reports;
• Audio clips including radio news bulletins, plus calls from the press, worried relatives and third party suppliers;
• Printable handouts including web news screens.
• Sound effect montages.

Fire Exercise Toolkit Content

Stage One – The Outbreak of Fire

Stage Two – The situation develops

Stage Three – The Fire is Under Control

Additional Material

Stage One

Film

1. Footage of the fire breaking out in the city- No voice-over
2. TV News Report- Outbreak of the fire in the city

Audio

1. Radio News Bulletin – Outbreak of fire in the city
2. Call from Employee – seeking information, should I come to work?
3. Call from senior employee- seeking information and plan of action
4. Call from Journalist from National newspaper – Can you tell me anything?
5. Call from wife – Have you seen my husband?
6. Call from Contractor- seeking delivery information
7. SFX- Emergency Services/busy traffic
8. SFX- Fire blazing/traffic jam
9. SFX- Fire blazing, fire alarms, sprinklers, sirens, traffic and people outside

Print

1. Scenario assumptions
2. Webpage News article- description of incident so far

Stage Two

Film

1. News Report – High winds cause the fire to spread through the city
2. Footage of the fire spreading through the city, no voice-over

Audio

1. Radio Bulletin – Flames have spread through the city centre
2. Call from Journalist – When will business resume?
3. Call from Wife – Complaint to Incident Management Team
4. Call from Employee – Seeking Information
5. Call from Contractor – What about deliveries for the rest of the week?

Print

1. Scenario assumptions
2. Webpage news article – breaking news of the problem

Stage 3

Film

1. Footage of the fire – Now under control (no voice-over)
2. News Report – Fire under control

Audio

1. Financial News Report- Version 1- Estimated damage: £2 Million
2. Financial News Report- Version 2- Estimated damage: £200 Million
3. Radio Bulletin- Fire under Control
4. Call from Employee – complaint to line manager
5. Call from Employee – back log of work
6. Call from Radio Journalist – seeking information on customer service

Print

1. Scenario assumptions at this stage
2. Webpage News article- summing up the events

Additional Material

1. Fire facts
2. SFX
3. Short film clips

Flood Exercise Toolkit Contents

Stage One- The outbreak of the Flood

Stage Two- The situation develops

Stage Three- The Flood is under control

Additional Material

Stage One:

Film

1. TV News Bulletin
2. Montage of severe flooding (No voice-over)

Audio

1. Radio News Report
2. Radio Weather Report
3. Call from office-based employee
4. Call from Manager
5. Call from third-party supplier
6. Call from Worried relative
7. Call from member of the public

Print & Graphics

1. Webpage News article
2. Met Office Press Release

Scripts include

• Radio Weather Report
• TV News Bulletin
• Radio News Report
• Office based Employee phone call
• Call from Manager phone call
• Call from 3^rd Party
• Worried Relative phone call
• Call from Member of the Public

Stage Two

Film

1. TV News Bulletin- Fears of contaminated drinking water
2. Montage of flood footage

Audio

1. Radio News Report – Mounting problems
2. News Report – Health risks (with Interview)
3. Call from employee
4. Manager and Employee- How are you coping with the relocation?

Print

1. Web-page News article
2. Health Protection Agency regarding flood water

Scripts include

• TV News Bulletin
• Radio News Report – Mounting Problems
• Radio News Report – Health Risks with Interview
• Call from Employee
• Manager and Employee – How are you coping with the relocation?

Stage Three

Film

1. TV News Bulletin- Clean up underway
2. Montage of flood footage

Audio

1. Radio News Report – Clean Up underway
2. Call from Newspaper journalist
3. Radio phone in – Do you blame the Authorities?
4. Call from Customer 1
5. News Report- Financial Report

Print & Graphics

1. Webpage News article 1 – Flood Victims face dangerous aftermath
2. Webpage News article 2 – Fixing the flooding infrastructure
3. Web page news Article – Insurance costs rise

Scripts Include

• Call from Customer
• News Report- Financial Impact
• Radio Phone In
• Call from Journalist
• Radio News Report
• TV News Report

Additional Material

1. Flood facts
2. SFX
3. Short film clips

This product is licensed for internal business use only.

Note: in order to run these disks you will need to have Shockwave Player 11 installed on your computer, which is downloadable for free.

SPECIAL OFFER!

Get a FREE copy of the classic book, Disaster Recovery Testing: Exercising Your Contingency Plan with your purchase! Only $289.00 for the Fire and Flood Exercise Collections PLUS your bonus book!

To Purchase: Just click on “Add to Cart.”

Tags: disaster recovery testing, DVD, exercise, scenarios, scripts, test, video

Satellite imagery has captured some of the devastation caused by the 6.3-magnitude earthquake that flattened buildings and killed scores of people in the New Zealand city of Christchurch on February 22, 2011.

Continue reading Photos Before and after the Christchurch earthquake

Tags: Christchurch, earthquake, new zealand, photos

Quantum Corp. a global specialist in backup, recovery and archive, released findings focused on disaster recovery from its 2010 IT Manager Survey.

Continue reading Quantum Survey Confirms Importance of Comprehensive Disaster Recovery Strategy

Tags: Disaster Recovery, Quantum, survey