Disaster Recovery Journal

One of the ongoing problems in business continuity is articulating the business case in a way that resonates with executives and others in our organizations and doesn't require a twenty slide PowerPoint presentation.  In an attempt to help, I will periodically post items as I find them in the news or wherever they turn up.  The idea is to give business continuity professionals ideas for informal conversations that highlight both the need for business continuity activities and some potential pitfalls of ignoring them.

On Wednesday, August 25^th, a hardware failure in Virginia's main data center brought the services of multiple state agencies to a halt.  The failure impacted twenty-six of eighty state agencies including the Department of Motor Vehicles and the Department of Social Services, two of the most visible, public facing agencies.  Details can be found in an article from the Richmond Times Dispatch at http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/2010/aug/27/8/vita27-ar-475161/.  As of Monday morning, August 30^th, three of those agencies still reported outages, including the inability of the DMV to issue driver's licenses.  

One of the ongoing problems in business continuity is articulating the business case in a way that resonates with executives and others in our organizations and doesn't require a twenty slide PowerPoint presentation.  In an attempt to help, "BC Stories - Elevator Pitches and Object Lessons" is a continuing series of posts based on timely and relevant news stories.  The idea is to give business continuity professionals ideas for informal conversations that highlight the need for planning while identifying potential pitfalls.

A simple search for "Gulf oil spill" in your favorite search engine will return dozens of links for sites that document the response (or lack thereof) to the Deep Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.  News reports over the past several days have criticized groups ranging from BP to the U.S. Government for their involvement in what the Unified Command is calling a "massive and potentially unprecedented environmental disaster".  Accidents can happen and unexpected events will always impact business operations, but proactive business continuity planning and documented recovery plans can help make the water a little less murky.

Did you find a DRJ Spring World 2010 seminar particularly mind-blowing?  #drjspring.  Are you upset because people in the room next door were up all night arguing about PS-PREP?  #drjspring.  Wondering which local bar everyone is heading to at 5:00?  #drjspring.  Now, with one simple "hashtag", participants of DRJ's Spring World 2010 will be able to communicate and network with one another before, during and after one of the largest business continuity and disaster recovery conferences. 

Business Continuity professionals and organizations from around the world have turned to Twitter to interact with customers (or Followers) and share with them industry ideas and trends.  Similar to DRJ (known as @drjournal on Twitter) and yours truly (known as @avalution on Twitter), people are now able to communicate their thoughts, suggestions, questions, and feedback in real-time.  And, with the establishment of Spring World's own hashtag, conference attendees will be able to actively communicate their thoughts on the conference collectively. 

A funny thing happened on the way to increased security.