Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Services
by Ken Schroyer and Steve Strickler
Administrative Information Services (AIS) continues to provide services to assist Penn State units, departments, and campuses with their business continuity and disaster recovery planning efforts. These centrally funded (no-fee) services include:
- Offsite Data Storage
- LDRPS (Living Disaster Recovery Planning System) Recovery Planning software
- Business Impact Analysis (BIA) and Risk Assessment (RA) software
- Business Continuity Training program
- Business Continuity Consulting--via hands-on assistance from Rick Flemming.
The AIS Training Program consists of the following five Phases:
- Project Planning
- BIA/RA Planning
- Developing the Recovery Strategy
- Developing the Recovery Plan Requirements
- Exercise and Maintenance Plans
While AIS has continued to follow its five-phase BCP (Business Continuity Planning) methodology for providing recovery planning assistance, we began in May 2009 to modify and streamline the approach to certain components within the Business Continuity Planning process. The Business Continuity Consultant is working much more closely with the various units, departments, and campuses, using a hands-on methodology to complete the requirements within each BCP Phase. This method differs from the original concept of providing formalized training, after which the trainees would develop the output for that phase on their own.
Most, if not all, of the areas that engaged with AIS last year are still working (or are about to re-engage) to complete their BCP requirements. Since May 2009, AIS has continued to assist the following University Park Campus Departments/Units:
| University Park Campus Department/Unit | Status |
|---|---|
| AIS | AIS Units are continuing to develop business recovery and disaster recovery plans as part of Phase 4. |
| College of Liberal Arts | Currently in the process of completing RA surveys for 4 buildings/facilities to finish Phase 2. Expect to begin Phase 3 shortly |
| Digital Library Technologies (DLT) | AIS is working with Digital Library Technologies (DLT) to assist with plan development assistance to complete Phase 4. |
| Office of Corporate Controller (OCC) | AIS has re-engaged with OCC to provide assistance with Phase 4. |
| Office of Human Resources (OHR) | AIS has re-engaged with OHR to provide assistance for Phase 3. |
| Office of Physical Plant (OPP) | OPP is currently in the process of completing the BIA to comprehensively identify its critical services and downtime impact information for Phase 2. |
| OutReach | AIS is working with 14 separate Units within OutReach; 11 have completed the BIA, with 3 Units still in progress. Additionally, OutReach is working on completing RA surveys for 6 different OutReach buildings/facilities. |
| University Police | AIS continues to coordinate with key individuals from University Police/Emergency Management Team to provide continuity plan development assistance. |
| VP for Commonwealth Campuses (OVPCC) | OVPCC recently completed Phase 2 and Phase 3. AIS is currently in the process of assisting OVPCC with Phase 4. |
Additionally, AIS has worked with, or will begin to work with, the following Commonwealth Campuses:
| Commonwealth Campus | Status |
|---|---|
| Harrisburg | Harrisburg has completed the RA to finish Phase 2. The next step in the process is to begin/complete Phase 3. |
| Mont Alto | Mont Alto contacted AIS to indicate that they are interested in starting the BCP Phase 1 process shortly. |
| New Kensington | New Kensington is tentatively planning to begin the BCP process, based on the onsite meeting AIS conducted with key individuals from that campus. |
In August 2009, AIS completed a major upgrade from LDRPS version 9.1 to version 10 of the Business Continuity Planning Software. Having completed this upgrade, one of the major tasks will be to import all of the BIA data into the new version of LDRPS. This is a critical action item that facilitates Phase 4 of the recovery planning requirements.
As can be easily seen from the above tables, AIS is highly engaged in assisting other areas of the University in developing critically needed Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plans. We are able to provide this assistance as a result of the growing in-house expertise needed for AIS’s own Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plan requirements with commitment and support from the University to provide centrally funded (no-fee) tools, allowing AIS to provide this critical service.
AIS Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity Planning
As indicated in the ITS Strategic Plan, Business Continuity Planning (BCP) for services and Disaster Recovery (DR) Planning for systems remains an important goal for Penn State, and Administrative Information Services (AIS) shares that vision.
On Saturday, August 15, the effort of many individuals led to the successful implementation of new enterprise-class storage within Shields building. While a number of unforeseen issues were encountered during the weekend, the strategy to recover services on hardware located in the Computer building was again proven by prior recovery planning. Awareness about how to address recovery of services based on the strategy led to effective recovery of those affected services until a resolution to storage issues enabled services to be returned to Shields building.
Additionally, during the past year, greater effort has been placed into leveraging project planning methodologies for recovery of systems and services. To ensure that AIS meets the commitment that ITS leadership has made to promote better planning and decisions based on data, AIS established the Operational Contingency Board (OCB). The role of this board is to oversee the planned recovery of key systems and services on a regular basis. The total time taken to complete these recoveries, along with the lessons learned, will drive any necessary updates to internal and external agreements. Currently, the OCB has initiated planning for recovery exercises of eSteward and Imaging, with target dates in November 2009, while EIS and Data Warehouse have recovery exercises planned in March 2010.