Contingency planning can be defined as planning for an unexpected event. it is the ability that helps prevent, prepare, respond to, manage and recover from the impacts of a business disruption events like Natural disasters, such as hurricanes which major component are BCP Business continuity planning is simply creating a backup plan or alternative plan that helps an organization to quickly respond to significant future events or disruption that may or may not happen for making sure that there is no interruption on their critical business operations. Disaster recovery planning is the combinations of policies procedures and tools for restorations of critical IT resources like infrastructures, applications, when the organization is unable to contain or control the impact of an incident
Case Study: Fire torches office of Cantey Technology at Mount Pleasant but IT Firm Dodges Catastrophe in 2013 when a big lightning struck in Mount pleasant office building at South Carolina on Cantey Technology Consulting which was founded by wills Cantey that caused a fire to break out. As seen on the website of Cantey Technology Consulting, they are "determined to offer the best IT solutions and consultancy in Charleston, the southeast and beyond.
Introduction
Contingency planning can be defined as planning for an unexpected event after the use of technology disruption by implementation of Business continuity plan and disaster recovery plan after the development, and maintenance of strategies and procedures to assists an entity manage a business disruption event. It's the ability that helps prevent, prepare, respond to, manage and recover from the impacts of a business disruption events like Natural disasters, such as hurricanes, fires earthquake, and lighting. Disasters can cause a shutdown of your company for days, weeks or months. Nevertheless, an effective business continuity and disaster recovery plan will help mitigate physical and financial damage, and quickly get you back on your feet. Over 43% of businesses does not have a disaster recovery plan that results to go out of business after major loss.
 |
Figure 1 The percentage of businesses without Disaster recovery |
Business continuity planning is simply creating a backup plan or alternative plan that helps an organization to quickly respond to significant future events or disruption that may or may not happen for making sure that there is no interruption on their critical business operations. It is written plan of action to guide procedures, process and systems requires to restore the business operations in case of a disaster. It is mostly properly managed by CEO.
Disaster recovery planning is the combinations of policies procedures and tools for restorations of critical IT resources like infrastructures, applications, when the organization is unable to contain or control the impact of an incident. etc. for predetermined time after uncertainty or disaster as no one can work without pre plan under high tension and mental instability at the time of disaster hence disaster recovery planning plays a great role for the restoration of business. There are four main factors that contributes to the execution of business continuity planning:
The components of Business continuity plan are: -
- Identify-Risk Assessment
- Analyze-Business impact analysis
- Create- strategy & plan Development
- Measure- Test, Train & Maintain
 |
Figure 2 Business continuity planning life cycle |
The components of Business recovery planning are explained as follows: -
IDENTIFY: Risk Assessment
The process of identifying and prioritizing threats, potential (future) events like disasters that may be vulnerable for the business is Risk assessment. Risk assessment plays an important role for determining if the present control measures are adequate or not.
ANALYZE: Business Impact Analysis
Business impact analysis (BIA) is a process in which the potential effects of a disturbance on critical business processes arising from a catastrophe, injury or emergency are calculated and measured for creating recovery strategy to find the exact value of an uncertainty.
CREATE: Strategy & Plan Development
Strategy and plan development Require resources including human resources, Infrastructure, equipment, services and information technology. Based on the BIA output. Strategies can include negotiating with third parties, entering into alliances or reciprocal agreements or transferring other activities within the organization. Employees with a thorough understanding of business functions and procedures are in the best position to determine what will succeed.
MEASURE:Test,Train and Maintain
The process of testing and training is the most important component for the business continuity plan because we cannot wait for the uncertainty hence pre practice and test must be conducted for the smooth implementation of the BCP in real situations. The effectiveness or capabilities of the BC plan cannot be trusted unless it is tested to prove its validity.
There are three exclusive option for the continuity of the business which are as follows :-
1.Hot site
The hot site is a commercial disaster recovery facility that allows a company to maintain computer and network operations with all services in the event of a computer failure or equipment which is the most effective and expensive approach for backups for disaster recovery.
2.Warm site
A warm site is a form of facility that a company, when its primary data center goes down, uses to restore its technology infrastructure. A warm disaster recovery site is vital for continuity of business as it enables an enterprise to continue running in the event of an unplanned accident and avoids further data loss.
3.Cold site
A cold site is a similar type of disaster recovery service that provides office space, but all the equipment needed to continue operations is supplied and installed by the customer. A cold site is less costly but it takes longer after the tragedy to get a business into full operation.
 |
| Figure 3 Business continuity and disaster recovery planning pyramid |
1.1.AIM AND OBJECTIVES
The main aims and objectives of this report is as follows: -
AIMS
to provide relevant and in-depth information on BCP and DRP
To gain knowledge on Smooth operation of the business
To Implement the plan without delay
OBJECTIVES
Ensure the safety of all staff and guests at the site
Ensure the capacity of the enterprise to continue operating after a disaster by Protecting company sites and facilities
2.Background
The International Standard for Business Continuity –ISO 22301– is officially released and comes at a time when there has never been a greater need for good BCM (business continuity management) practice. In collaboration with experts from around the world, the new standard has been developed to ensure its international relevance and applicability and to ensure that it meets the needs of global organizations. It is hoped that the new standard would create a path for greater international consistency and promote global adoption by organizations of all sizes and in all fields of good BCM practice.According to the International Data Corp the average cost of business downtime is $84,000 per hour.
3.Literature Review
3.1.Case Study: Fire torches office of Cantey Technology at Mount Pleasant but IT Firm Dodges Catastrophe
In 2013 when a big lightning struck in Mount pleasant office building at South Carolina on Cantey Technology Consulting which was founded by wills Cantey that caused a fire to break out. As seen on the website of Cantey Technology Consulting, they are "determined to offer the best IT solutions and consultancy in Charleston, the southeast and beyond. Our success over the years has always taken precedence over our customers. Which the offices were home to Cantey Technology an information technology company that was responsible for hosts servers for more than two hundred clients. Despite surge protection systems, Lightning burst through the IT company's network links, and began a blaze that demolished their network closet. Though the building did not burn to the ground but wires, computer hardware, and networking equipment were melted and charred beyond repair by the fire. the office became unusable. The situation looked bleak for a company whose core service is the hosting of servers for other companies. The whole system of the Cantey was destroyed.
But the, customers at Cantey never knew the difference. As part of its business continuity strategy, Cantey started implementing a business-continuity plan five years before. which involved moving all its client servers to a remote data center and scheduling ongoing backups of data. Cantey had already relocated its client servers to a remote data center where continuous backups were stored. but, despite Cantey and his workers being forced to work for several weeks in a temporary location, their customers never felt the effects of the chaos.
 |
Figure 4 Cantey Technology |
3.1.1. Finding
From above case study we found that On September 16, 2013 the business continuity plan was successfully formulated or implemented by an IT company named Cantey Technology which hosts servers for more than 200 clients when it was struck by a big lightening that destroyed the building along with wires, computer hardware, and networking equipment. The president and co-founder Mrs. Willis Cantey started implementing a business-continuity plan five years before as business continuity plan. which involved moving all its client servers to a remote data center and scheduling ongoing backups of data. Cantey had already relocated its client servers to a remote data center where continuous backups were stored which saved all the valuable data of the clients at an unpredictable disaster.
3.1.2. Analysis
Willis Cantey the co-founder and president of Cantey Technology was able to provide uninterrupted services to more than 200 clients after such a huge unpredictable disaster. that had destroyed a whole company due to fire caused by the striking of big lightning at the office building which caused the loss of its infrastructures, computer hardware and networking equipment’s by making strong disaster Recovery plan implementing it timely that is before 5 years of an incident that saved his business. Cantey says the end result is a Business continuity planning and disaster recovery which provided a guide for him to follow during the recovery process, so he was not losing customers. Ultimately having a plan saved all of its business. Therefore, every company must have a clear disaster recovery plan that should be frequently practiced to resolve these unexpected events. Hence, we cannot fight against the naturel disasters but we can minimize the time of recovery by implementing the disaster recovery plan timely.
4.CONCLUSION
Hence it can be concluded that by implementing the Business recovery plan and Disaster recovery plan timely the business organizations can provide the uninterrupted services to their valuable clients. A Business continuity plan is a written plan of action to guide procedures, process and systems requires to restore the business operations in case of a disaster. As we cannot fight against the naturel disasters but we can minimize the time of recovery by implementing the disaster recovery plan timely When business does not have BCP and DRP the business end with unpredictable uncertainty like natural disasters that cannot be controlled by anyone. But Cantey Technology successfully implemented the BCP ad DOP which helps the company to gain a good will and more trust by their client’s despite of the destructive lightning struck.
Hence, I would like to conclude that proper and timely implementation of the Business continuity plan and Disaster recovery plan can save the businesses from ending with the uncertainties like natural disasters with little expenses for the BCP and DRP an business can earn goodwill and provide uninterrupted services to their clients.
Related Articles:
0 Comments