Serious business preparation
Monday, March 13, 2006
Business Monday, Cayman Net News Issue 1048
It is 80 days before the start of the hurricane season and 18 months after Hurricane Ivan and the memories of starting over again are still fresh. Today, there has been a fundamental shift in people’s attitude about disaster recovery.
Employees from top management down are now familiar with the contents of disaster recovery plans that before Ivan were only opened when the auditors came around, the rest of the time, such documents collected dust in a desk drawer.
Now seminars dealing with the topic are well attended and disaster recovery, business continuity and fail back, are becoming common terms in business vocabulary.
Polly Skibinski conducting disaster recovery training
When a business community prepares properly for a hurricane season, this according to specialist Polly Skibinski is a great sign of progress. To get to the next level however, there is still much more to prepare for than natural disasters.
Ms Skibinski, Area Manager for Foreshore, said businesses should also prepare for pipes bursting, computer viruses, arson, terrorists attacks and falling asteroids.
"My largest concern is even with this poignant experience we came away from, the majority of the is still concerned only with the June 1 through December 15 – hurricane season," said Ms Skibinski.
"And yet historically we have had larger outages and downtime from man-made disasters. One example is the Genesis building fire of July 1999, which was arson.
Polly Skibinski, Area Manager for Foreshore
"We had telecommunications downtime during 9:11 because people were not able to communicate with the because the phones were jammed. We had our own telecommunications downtime during Hurricane Wilma – where many businesses lost phones for five days. And there has been a lot of downtime from contractors jack hammering and hitting your pipes. And then there are viruses and general uncalculated risks."
Given that thousands of American tourists visit this country on cruise ships makes it a potential terrorist threat, she added.
Especially if there is a high profile person involved, which is common in this country. And the fact that Cayman is the fifth largest financial centre also makes the country a potential target.
Ms Skibinski said even just concentrating on the hurricane season there are still a lot of variables that get missed without proper testing.
"The number one thing that needs to be protected is the reputation of the company. Where is the PR response to the general public or to the overseas clientele or potential clientele? " she said.
Polly Skibinski with partner Ben Webster and Sales
Manager, Andrew Jarrett
"If you are a bank or a law firm - what are you doing to still comply with CIMA regulations? You have to make sure Know Your Customer and due diligence is still in place and you are still in full compliance.
"What if you have scheduled a charter to evacuate your employees but you have foreign nationals that don’t have qualifying visas to the US? A lot of these issues can be pre-planned.
"We need to have a checklist so that we are aware of the myriad of possibilities. And we have to be diligent to avoid a false sense of security," said Ms Skibinski.
She said that many people realised after Hurricane Ivan there was much more to business continuity than backing up your data.
"They needed a plan for evacuating their employees, they needed a back up of their payroll and they needed a fail back plan," she said.
Ms Skibinski explained that many companies didn’t account for the day they came back and opened their doors for business such as ordering office furniture and supplies and arranging for office space. She was very interested to see that in some cases a freezer was used to dry out documents and prevent mould.
Polly Skibinski and Andrew Jarrett discusses mark
and working on marketing plans for Cayman and Region with Sherry Robinson
There were too many plans that designated one person to retrieve the back up tapes during an evacuation. In the turmoil before Hurricane Ivan, one employee who was designated to get the back up tapes forgot and evacuated the with them still locked in the safe. This is why repeated testing of a plan is so important in business and even personally, she said.
"You have to think about if you are standing in airport how are you going to recreate your life. Such as access to bank accounts, personal identification, pertinent contacts, doctors, lawyers and Indian chief," said Ms Skibinski.
She is seeing that 18 months after Hurricane Ivan businesses are in a much better position, there is more technology available and a higher level of awareness. There are more choices for diversified bandwidth. Some businesses have satellite phones.
Ellon Andrews shows Polly Skibinski where they keep
their servers at Cayman National Bank
"Technology for encrypted movement and storage of data off Island has become less expensive and more readily available. Whereas we said in the past, off availability was only for top-level banks and top-level law firms. Now, it is available for the restaurant, plumber, tour operator. If a business goes down then their QuickBooks data is just as important to them.
The home user also has a lot more savvy and is backing up family photos, personal laptops and important documents like their passport, insurance policy, home owner papers, CI Immigration card. They are scanning and digitally saved off Island."
Foreshore client, Andrew Galloway, and Polly Skibinski
discussing mobile office planning
She noted that disaster recovery plans are common - the next area to work on, she said, is linking the disaster plans together.
"For example - we have plans that may rely on key vendors or suppliers but we don’t know what their plans are. For example – a company may have a plan, which calls for getting office supplies and furniture shipped. But we don’t know the plans of those suppliers are for a disaster," Ms Skibinski explained.
"We have a chain of reliance that has to dig to the next level. We are only as strong as our weakest link. We may have a great plan but it has to be a living, breathing, active plan. Just writing it down doesn’t give you full protection and you have to test, test and retest," she added.
In some cases after the Hurricane some businesses may have purchased higher levels of services such as real time data back up, which can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.
Some businesses can be just as effective with a six hour or 24 hour back up that is more in line with their business model.
Polly Skibinski talks with Jay Schutte and Ellon
Andrews of Cayman National Bank about testing their
disaster recovery plans
Now that the dust has settled in the wake of Hurricane Ivan, it may be time to re-evaluate the formula needed to ensure they have business continuity, Ms Skibinski noted.
She added that business should consider that technology has developed and can now consider going further than data back up. The next step is to access and remotely work with the data in normal business tasks.
"Then if you want to have a completely automated system – you can implement an off Island co-location and real time replication of your system in like jurisdictions that have similar regulations to the Cayman Islands such as Jersey and the Channel Islands. This affords business the opportunity to remotely do the business from just about anywhere in the world," she said.
However, she added that there are also solutions for small to medium size businesses such as plumbers, mechanics, grocers and air conditioning repair guys for example.
"That is why we launched 7 X 7, which is a new product that allows small to medium businesses to back up their important data off island using the existing Internet connection. It is an affordable solution," she said.
Polly Skibinski demonstrates the new 7 x 7 product to
Andrew Jarrett and Sherry Robinson
Foreshore has been promoting basic and simple technical solutions to start small businesses at an inexpensive level.
"There is so much people can do that they do not have to pay a dime for," Ms Skibinski said.
"There is a lot available for free on the Internet, education, knowledge base, tools on the Internet. It is a matter of taking time to do the research. If you don’t have the time – then find someone who will share that information with you. That is why I am interested in having a forum so that businesses can share their experiences together. Because the more of the community that can stay in business after a disaster the better it is for the community as a whole," she added.