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Hurricane
Help |
Hurricane Preparations for
Information Technology |
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Pre-Hurricane Preparations
Lessons Learned from Katrina Following
Hurricane Katrina interviews with IT Professionals have resulted in the
following observations and suggestions: -
Cell
Phones $
When
they’re the only resource working, towers will quickly become overloaded. $
Get
cell phones from a diverse set of providers to increase the probability one
of the services will be active. $
Cell
phones with out of state phone numbers often worked when those with local
numbers wouldn’t. $
Many
times when voice service was out, text messaging still worked. Do you have that service enabled? $
The
devices that provided the most consistent, uptime service: satellite phones. -
What
do you do when the T1s fail? $
Is
a line of site wireless solution an option for you,
how about microwave? -
What
if the land lines are out, cellular is down, and the radio repeaters aren’t
working? $
Can
you operate using manual processes? $
Think
outside the box, implement message runners! -
When
communications between team members are limited, sticking to the plan becomes
even more important. During Katrina
some agencies revised their emergency services location but related bureaus
couldn’t find them. -
If
a disaster happened overnight at your site, how many of your staff members
would have their laptops available to them to work remotely? (or are they on
desks in the office?) Think about a
policy that states if the company provides you with a laptop you are
obligated to take it home at night. -
Having
hard copy information can be critical.
Printed lists or USB memory drives with lists of business contacts,
passwords, and authorization codes can be life savers. -
You
may want to rethink your logic for selection of an off-site storage
center. Ten miles away? Most likely its too close. Have you visited the site? Many centers were flooded during Katrina,
would your center flood? -
Technology can only take you so far, it takes
people to execute a recovery plan and their ability to react and devise
alternatives. Have you done all you can to make sure they have the tools they’ll need to save
your systems? Are some team members prepared to help
with the recovery remotely, while others are designated to be on-site? ============================================================================ Some
companies that survived Katrina found the assumptions they had made
developing their disaster plans greatly underestimated; - the risk to the regional
communication networks - the impact on human resources - the loss of personal property and
need for housing - the impact to shipping, “overnighting” of replacement hardware often took a week Their
revised plans took into consideration; - tape less backup solutions, because
tape restores took so long - replication of not only data but
application services and servers (best if out of state) - recovery procedure documentation
rewritten to be executed by non-technical staff - recovery documentation, tech notes,
and critical software stored at multiple locations |
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HURRICANE-HELP |
BEFORE-THE-STORM |
DURING-THE-STORM |
AFTER-THE-STORM |
IT PROFESSIONALS |
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