| Pandemic planning, and working from home. | | | | paying for offsite disaster recovery services, |
| Disaster recovery planning is being challenged by | | | | even in the light of Hurricane Katrina. Setting aside |
| the possibility of avian bird flu or other outbreak | | | | funds for disaster recovery systems is like |
| that would leave workers stuck at home for | | | | setting aside money for anything that is not |
| weeks at a time. The worst case scenario is that | | | | critical. The money is competing for many other |
| avian bird flu mutates into a fast spreading | | | | hands and people are fighting for those funds. |
| communicable disease. The challenge for public | | | | Let's go over some of the steps needed for |
| safety, county and city services is this. How do | | | | pandemic planning, and disaster recovery.o Ensure |
| you still provide services when your staff can not | | | | you incorporating lessons learned! Every past |
| leave home or is simply afraid to enter into the | | | | disaster has lessons that should be used in revised |
| normal workplace? | | | | planso Incorporating human impacts into the |
| City jobs that require physical labor will be | | | | recovery and planning processo Prepare for the |
| severely impacted as workers call in sick. But the | | | | human nature aspect, to prepare staff for the |
| computer operations that many people do all day | | | | psychological effectso Educate and communicate |
| long can be done from home. Remote computing | | | | with employees to increase their awarenesso |
| can assist in some situations. The challenge is how | | | | Leveraging executive and management buy-inso |
| to make it work securely and easily from users | | | | Testing, and enhancing work from home |
| homes. Remote computing can help when they | | | | procedures and optionso Merging private and |
| are either afraid to come to work or have | | | | public sector best practices to enhance |
| symptoms of the disease themselves. Remote | | | | emergency preparednesso Enhancing |
| computing, or telecommuting, has been around for | | | | communication techniques during disasters and |
| years and is used by many corporations. How can | | | | measure the effectso Building business unit, and |
| such technology be used? | | | | departmental preparedness to cross train |
| For a brief example of how remote computing | | | | employees |
| would help an organization, we will start with a | | | | Key to building a good disaster recovery system |
| critical city service, paying the bills! Verifying pay | | | | is to have a plan, take small steps with knowledge |
| records, verifying overtime and assimilating all the | | | | and commitment from stakeholders. Planning for |
| businesses and services who need to get paid is a | | | | disaster recovery takes a determined project |
| huge job. The final product after the batch runs is | | | | planning effort. If you can't make out a project |
| to create the paychecks for distribution. The city | | | | plan, can't write down the dependencies and dates |
| users who do this at their computer would need | | | | when they need to be done, they you probably |
| to be able to do this from their home computer | | | | shouldn't embark on DR until you can do the |
| in a way that is secure and gives the users | | | | project management needed. |
| access to the same resources they have in the | | | | For project management, you don't need an |
| office workplace. What are the challenges to doing | | | | expert. There are people certified in project |
| this? The first is to find out what are the most | | | | management. The PMI institute is one place to |
| important tasks that keep the city running, like | | | | look for training and advice on how to train people |
| check writing. Parcel out the tasks into high and | | | | to become project managers. |
| low priority, in order of how often and the | | | | In closing, we state the obvious, that fighting for |
| amount of people it takes to do the task. | | | | funding may be the biggest challenge in making a |
| One the tasks are broken into priority and | | | | disaster recovery system come to exist. |
| number of users, those applications that people | | | | Operational expenses do exist when trying to |
| use can be put on remote access servers in such | | | | duplicate any service, and like anything that is not |
| a way that most home based users could run the | | | | used every day, it needs to be tested now and |
| application from their home pc. That means | | | | then. This all adds up to operational expense. The |
| minimal amount of software installed on the users | | | | ability to recover your IT or communications |
| home computer, and a secure connection to the | | | | systems from a disaster takes a large |
| city resources either via internet, dial-up or radio. | | | | investment in time, training, vendor selection and |
| This would allow the users to run these | | | | PATIENCE! |
| applications from the computers at home without | | | | The take away lesson from this: |
| endangering themselves or others. | | | | Disaster recovery solution implementation has to |
| The technology exists to solve the problems | | | | come from the top, where the money is |
| discussed here, the question is how much money | | | | distributed and reallocated. Initial expenditures and |
| are governments willing to spend? Are they ready | | | | operational costs must be taken into account and |
| to spend money on building systems that are only | | | | put in the budget for a system to work reliably |
| used for emergencies? There has been more | | | | year after year. |
| than one local government that recently stopped | | | | Copyright 2006, R. Deluhery Op911. |