Our Editorial Advisory Board has fielded hundreds of difficult, thought provoking questions over the years from you, our readers. We have decided to share many of these excellent questions with the rest of you in hopes we can help others with the great information that was provided.
Question 1: (Click here to View this Q&A Series)
I was wondering if you could tell me how organizations deal with budgeting for DR based on critical systems and forecasted growth, then a project comes along and by the time that it gets to the point of being put up for production there are new servers, dasd, etc that have not been accounted for. My question I guess is how do organizations deal with unexpected changes that cause the DR budget to rise throughout the year?
Question 2: (Click here to View this Q&A Series)
Currently we have
business units operating out of 3 different physical
locations in a city. Plans are underway to consolidate all company
operations out of a single newly built location in 2 years. Current BCP's
are developed using each other's sites as alternate locations as well
as the limited use of continuity service providers. Technology contingency
plans are well developed and even planned to cater for the different phases
during relocation. As part of the "programming of the building"
and review of business requirements for the new location (physical, hardware,
proximity, dependencies etc) is there a set of questionnaires or a checklist
(outside the normal BIA's and exposure minimization etc) available to
elicit a response from the critical units to address business requirements
in their continuity plans.
Question 3: (Click here to View this Q&A Series)
From a best practices point of view, where should BCP report? Information Systems? Business Operations? Internal Audit?
Question 4: (Click here to View this Q&A Series)
I'm interested in knowing if there is an industry role of thumb regarding the pre-staging/climatiztion of 1/2 inch tape cartridges before they can be mounted? For example: if my tape cartridges are being shipped to me from my off-site vendor. How long is required for the tapes to acclimate to the new environment before they can be used?
Question 5: (Click here to View this Q&A Series)
Are there any bench-marks as to staffing a Backup and Recovery team?
Question 6: (Click here to View this Q&A Series)
I am looking for best practice information on the frequency of plan reviews.
My stance is that quarterly reviews will keep the plans in working order and should limit the overall amount of "catch-up" work that occurs when a review is performed. The opposite side to this is something along the lines of bi-annual reviews - with one of the biggest arguments being that the current annual reviews take too much time and are hard to accomplish as it is.
Once an organization has plans in place, how often is a formal review conducted?
Question 7: (Click here to View this Q&A Series)
We're trying to find ways that companies handle employee safety after a disaster. Are there any 'best practices' when it comes to assuring employees are at the designated meeting site after a disaster?
Question 8: (Click here to View this Q&A Series)
I have always
thought that the best IT Disaster Recovery Test is
one that is tested to failure. Others in my organization belive we need
to
make it a SAFE test so as not to waste test time. I prefer to test real
life scenarios like not dup-taping all your tapes beforehand so you have
extra copies in case of media errors.
What is the
best practice for IT disaster recovery testing? We are a large
iSeries shop and rely on our daily backup tapes for our recovery. I would
like to see us not prepare our tests for success but use a real life
situation.
Question 9: (Click here to View this Q&A Series)
Is there a rule of thumb that assists in approximating the appropriate size of a BCP Team (project coordinators)? Are there any statistics out there that identify the typical headcount of a BCP department based on organization size?
Question 10: (Click here to View this Q&A Series)
I am trying to determine if my vendors have a Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery program. I am looking for a checklist or a list of questions to ask them.
Question 11: (Click here to View this Q&A Series)
What is the primary role and purpose of a steering Committee for Company-wide BCDR planning?
What representation/membership should reside on the steering committee to ensure the steering committee charter can be fulfilled?
Question 12: (Click here to View this Q&A Series)
Is there a best practice on the distance between your primary data center and your alternate site/offsite data storage site?
Question 13: (Click here to View this Q&A Series)
We are trying to provide our dedicated DR staff with some sort of incentive. In the event of a disaster, it is common for staff to not show up. Do you have any ideas that will help us diminish this problem?
Question 14: (Click here to View this Q&A Series)
Has there
been any trend in using personal residences as work relocation
sites?
Question 15: (Click here to View this Q&A Series)
Is there a place where I can get help with writing or incorporating Standards for my organization. I am looking to establish planning standards, back-up standards etc. Is there a document that describes perhaps industry standards?
The responses reflect the views of the individual EAB member, and do not necessarily reflect the views of their employers, the DRJ, or the EAB as a whole