Continuity Of Government And Continuity Essay

event of a catastrophic disruption (fire) or disaster (hurricane) and a major IT or data center outage occurs

Presentation regarding the university’s Disaster Recovery Plan/Enterprise Continuity Plan including: basic structures; roles within the DRP/ECP plan; areas within a company if addressed improve resilience to catastrophic events, and an employee awareness campaign.

Why is a business impact analysis (BIA) an important first step in defining a business continuity plan (BCP)? The BIA identifies the critical and

The purpose of the disaster recovery plan is to ensure the process of recovering mission critical systems has a plan of action in case of a disaster. The disaster recovery plan makes sure all the steps to bring up the critical to less critical systems

Rapid recovery from tremulous disruption can be achieved when the elements of resilience are present and utilise and the organisation can manage to bounce back to a stable operational state similar to the state before the initial change.

Continuity of Operations (COOP) is an effort within individual executive departments and agencies to ensure that Primary Mission Essential Functions continue to be performed during a wide range of emergencies, including localized acts of nature, accidents and technological or attack-related emergencies. To have an effective COOP, an organization must plan and mitigate all aspects of those functions for any type of situation which might cause a disruption of operations. The COOP must also align with the organizations goals in order to continue efficiency. With proper planning and mitigation, an organization can continue operations of their Mission Essential Functions (MEF). The first course of

Firstly, Disaster Recovery, this is a procedure that needs to be implemented in the case an accident occurs within an organisation that may result in the loss of data, for example fire/ water damage. This is when a plan needs to be applied to allow the recovery of data; an example of this could be recovering the backup files, installing new equipment and uploading the backup on the new network. For this to be effective this recovery policy relies on backups to be done regularly, otherwise recovery would not be eligible. The disaster recovery policy is highly beneficial and important as it saves not only the organisation but their money and reputation.

This plan addresses issues required for continuation of essential business functions, such as need assessment, communication and coordination under rapidly changing circumstances.

Critical infrastructures are interdependent on other infrastructures and if one fails the other will also (Kamien, 2012). For example, transportation is an infrastructure that has a significant linkage between resources and facilities. The Department of Homeland Security states “The nation's transportation system quickly, safely, and securely moves people and goods through the country and overseas.” How is transportation critical? A highway/bridge can provide emergency transportation access to a hospital. Should the bridge collapse, resources are not being reached to the hospital. The protection of our critical infrastructures is a shared responsibility of state, local, and federal governments. However, not all infrastructures are critical.

Awareness has grown during the last two decades of what is perceived as the increased vulnerability and interconnectedness of the UK’s Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) to the risk of human malign threats, such as criminal activity and terrorism, and also to natural hazards, such as flooding and storm damage. Such events have the potential to have significant social, political and economic impacts on society if CNI is unable to or has to operate at a reduced capacity. As a consequence of this increased recognition of vulnerability and interdependencies, there is a significant body of research which has developed and examines the resilience of CNI to such risks. However, over a period of time and with its increased usage, the term resilience has become a buzz word being frequently used by politicians, the media and academia, yet the term is highly contested, ambiguous, conflicting and inconsistent in its application regarding CNI. Moreover, the shifting understanding of the term resilience is determined by a number of interconnected dynamics, for instance

"Business continuity planning takes too much time." How much time is it going to take to recover from a major emergency?

Disasters have become an inevitable part of businesses and organizations as well. They not only have a major effect on business and organizational continuity; they also result to an overhaul in organizational operational mechanisms (Awasthy, 2009). It is for this reason that many organizations and business resort to preparing business continuity plans and disaster recovery plans that will facilitate better disaster management in future. Effective disaster recovery plans are important to every business and organization (Thejendra, 2008).

Disaster recovery is the process of an organisation uses to recover access the data, and also hardware that are needed to recollect the performance to be in normal position after a disaster occurs. While disaster recovery plans have to be focus in every aspect in any organisation and bringing the gap closure after destruction it can be like data, hardware, or software have been lost and the manpower that composes much of any organisation.

Disaster Recovery Planning is the critical factor that can prevent headaches or nightmares experienced by an organization in times of disaster. Having a disaster recovery plan marks the difference between organizations that can successfully manage crises with minimal cost, effort and with maximum speed, and those organizations that cannot. By having back-up plans, not only for equipment and network recovery, but also detailed disaster recovery plans that precisely outline what steps each person involved in recovery efforts should undertake, an organization can improve their recovery time and minimize the disrupted time for their normal business functions. Thus it is essential that disaster recovery plans are carefully laid

Contingency planners are now asserting that contingency planning is a value-added component that can be a competitive advantage in the marketplace as well a means of helping organizations save money. Processes that are deeply analyzed in terms of continuity will usually be more secure, and new ways of working may emerge to help streamline operations. Contingency planning can be useful when forging alliances with external organizations or during acquisition phases. Contingency planning should be part of an organization’s quality cycle as well. “Business continuity and disaster recovery have gained somewhat in the eyes of top corporate management since the start of the 1990s. As the industry has slowly evolved from what could almost have been called a ‘black art’ to something starting to resemble a disciplined science, basic business principles have begun to become increasingly relevant” (Rothstein, 2003, p. 1).