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Disaster Recovery Plan versus Business Continuity Plan
Both the disaster recovery and the business continuity plan covers how employees will communicate, where they will go and how they will keep doing their jobs. The details can vary greatly, depending on the size and scope of a company and the way it does business. For some businesses, issues such as supply chain logistics are most crucial and are the focus on the plan. For others, information technology may play a more pivotal role, and the BC/DR plan may have more of a focus on systems recovery.
The critical point
is that neither disaster recovery nor business continuity issues can be
ignored. These IT and human
resources plans cannot be developed in isolation from each other. The core of
disaster recovery and business continuity is about constant communication.
Business leaders and IT leaders should work together to determine what kind of
plan is necessary and which systems and business units are most crucial to the
company. Together, they should decide which people are responsible for declaring
a disruptive event and mitigating its effects. Most importantly, the plan should
establish a process for locating and communicating with employees after such an
event. In a catastrophic event (Hurricane Katrina being a relatively recent
example), the plan will also need to take into account that many of those
employees will have more pressing concerns than getting back to
work.
Microsoft improves security
Microsoft Corp. released an automated tool to stymie exploits of a critical unpatched Windows vulnerability that experts fear will soon be used by hackers against the general PC population. This will improve security for many users.
However, the tool, like a manual procedure that Microsoft recommended last week, is only a makeshift defense, one that many users may resist applying, since it makes much of the Windows system, including the desktop, taskbar and Start menu, almost unusable.
The company posted a "Fix It" tool on its support site that automatically disables the displaying of all Windows shortcut files. Microsoft stepped users through the same technique last week in its initial security advisory, but at that time it told them that they had to edit the Windows registry. Most Windows users are reluctant to monkey with the registry, since a single error can cripple a computer.
Microsoft's single-click Fix It tool simply automates that process. Users must reboot their machines after applying the work-around, but IT administrators can configure the tool to install it while users are out of the office or not at their PCs.
The company admitted that applying the Fix It or the registry-editing work-around would "impact usability" of the machine, since both transform the usual graphical icons on the desktop and elsewhere into generic white icons, making it impossible to tell at a glance which represents say, Internet Explorer, and which stands for Microsoft Word.
- more infoDisaster recovery plans depend on working backups
Disaster recovery plans are impacted by data encryption. Encryption continues to be the topic on every CIO and IT person's lips nowadays. No one wants to end up in the news as the next victim of a privacy breach or the next company that did not protect its customers' information. If you conduct a news search using the words personal data breach, you will be alarmed at the number of instances where personal information such as social security and credit-card numbers have been exposed to possible theft. In a recent breach, a state government site allowed access to hundreds of thousands of records, including names, addresses, social security numbers and documents with signatures.
Whether it is government agencies, research facilities,
banking institutions, credit card processing companies, hospitalsor your
company's computers the risk of compromising private information is very
high. The relationship business has with technology. -- business relies so
heavily on technology today, business risk becomes technology dependent. The
possibility of litigation is part of business. It has always been a risk of
doing business, but because technology and today's business are so intertwined,
business risk has a higher threat level. This has prompted many to encrypt
workstations and mobile computers in order to protect critical business
data.
If you have rolled out encryption, how do you maintain your
IT service quality when the hard disk drive fails? How do you plan and prepare
for a data loss when the users computer is encrypted? These are all
issues that should be considered when putting together a data disaster plan. In
addition, data recovery, one of the more common missing elements of a disaster
recovery plan, should also be factored in because it can serve as the "Hail
Mary" attempt when all other options have been exhausted.
IT organizations of all sizes contend with a growing data footprint with more data to manage, protect, and preserve for longer periods of time. Online primary storage, has focus a on fast low latency, reliable access to data while near-line secondary storage has a focus on low cost and high capacity. Long-term data retention requires a combination of ultra-low cost, good performance during storage and retrieval, and reduced footprint in terms of power, cooling, floor-space and economics (PCFE) - also known as a small green footprint - for inactive data.
- more infoFirefox market share at IE expense
During the past five years Mozilla Firefox has quietly carved out a nice little niche as an alternative to Microsoft's Internet Explorer, but Google Chrome is starting to steal some of its thunder.
Firefox's share of usage in the Web browser market peaked at 24.7% in November 2009. Since then it has dropped back. It was at 23.8% in June, according to NetApplications and reported by The Wall Street Journal.
The primary culprit behind the Firefox dip is the other alternative browser - Google Chrome. The Internet search giant launched its Chrome at the end of 2008 and it has been on a steady climb ever since. Chrome reached global market share of 7.24% in June, and it has taken that market share at the expense of both IE and Firefox.
- more infoImproving productivity with your PC
Improving your productivity with a PC requires that you know the following short cuts.
- CTRL + C will copy text after it has been highlighted.
- CTRL + V will paste text that you have copied.
- CRTL + Z will undo any change that you have done.
- CTRL + ESC will bring up the Start Menu.
- SHIFT + F3 will turn all capitalized text into lowercase.
- SHIFT + DELETE will delete an item immediately without placing it in the Recycle Bin.
- ALT + TAB will bring up a Window with a list of icons representing programs which are currently running on your computer. While holding the
- ALT key, press and depress the TAB button to cycle between each icon task.
- ALT + ESC will switch to the next task running on your computer. Hold down the ALT before pressing and depressing the ESC key to cycle to the next task.
- CTRL + ALT + DELETE will bring up Task Manager and allow you to end a process (terminate a program) if it has crashed or has stopped responding. Select the process which has stopped responding, and then press "END PROCESS''.
- SHIFT + INSERT will paste any text that is in your clipboard.
Your cursor must also be placed in an area that will accept keyboard input for this to work.
Disaster plans need to be reviewed
In response
to the growing scope and complexity of crisis situations, communication and
emergency notifi cation technology has evolved to meet the changing needs of
emergency response. Emergency notification technology has become more
sophisticated, moving from simple, one-way broadcast notifi cation capabilities
to automated intelligent notifi cations and true bi-directional communication
across multiple channels and devices. Most recently, emergency
notification/communication technologies have broadened their focus to include
tools that accelerate the resolution of events and enable better collaboration
and coordination among crisis response teams.
In order to provide the best protection and safety for employees, constituents and communities, organizations should revisit and update their Disaster Recovery plans to include risk scenarios for new threats. In addition, organizations should seek to automate their disaster recovery plans with the latest technology that enables organizations, schools, local government, as well as multinational corporations to respond quickly and effectively when disaster strikes. Organizations should take advantage of advances in emergency notifi cation and crisis communication tools to ensure that they can locate their people and then move rapidly into managing and resolving the crisis. Preplanning combined with automated, immediate communication capabilities can help ensure that people are safe, informed, engaged and mobilized when an emergency situation arises.
- more infoBuild Your Disaster Recovery Plan Before Disaster Strikes
Build Your Disaster Recovery Plan Before Disaster Strikes. Hurricane season is still with us and earthquakes happen at un-predictable times.
Now you can apply industry recognized best practices without spending thousands on consultants. The Disaster Recovery Planning Template has everything that you need.
Go to http://www.e-janco.com/drp.htm
- more infoDisaster Planning for Datacenters
Business
continuity is vital to business success. It can no longer remain the concern of
the IT department alone. How do you determine the continuity and recovery
requirements of your business to protect against a disaster? How do you identify
and integrate critical business and IT priorities into a comprehensive
continuity program? Where do you start?
Janco's data center disaster recovery plan for
business continuity includes:
- Identification of the business units and operational objectives.
- Identify & inventory and rank assets based on criticality to the business objectives.
- Rank the threats that pose risks to the critical assets.
- Identify the severity of vulnerabilities in the critical assets.
- Prioritize risks by focusing on assets affected by credible disaster threats and existing vulnerabilities.
- Develop strategies that minimize risk of disaster and maximize ROI.
Janco's Disaster
Recovery Business Continuity Template directs you in creating data
center disaster recovery plans and providing cost estimates to adapt your
facility and technology resources for continuous availability:
- Backup and recovery options for your multi-vendor information technology.
- Internal and external disaster recovery site options.
- Recoverability of your critical infrastructure.
- Protection of your critical business processes.
iPad scheduled to be a success
In a trend kick-started by the Apple iPad, more than 46 million media tablets are expected to ship in 2014, according to the new "Worldwide and U.S. Media Tablet 2010-2014 Forecast" released by IDC.
Up substantially from the 7.6 million tablets likely to ship this year, that forecast points to a compound annual growth rate of 57.4 percent. Of course, that includes not just the iPad but other tablets following its lead and competing in the marketplace, including the new Archos 7 Home Tablet, a tablet from the likes of Intel, and a potential tablet from the team of Google and Verizon.
- more infoWindows XP and Windows 2000 at end of life - no Microsoft support
Microsoft offers support for its products for five years and extended support for another five years. That time will soon be up for Windows 2000 (desktop and server) and Windows XP SP2: July 13 is the last day that extended support will be available.
According to Microsoft, self-help online support (such as Microsoft online Knowledge Base articles, FAQs, troubleshooting tools, and other resources) will be available for at least a year longer. But paid support, support assistance, and security updates will be discontinued on July 13.
- more info