Re: Business Contingency Plan

In a message dated 97-04-24 03:36:05 EDT, you write:

<< Does your computer room have a UPS system?  And a backup generator?  Are
 patient records stored on the computer?  Do you have to access them
instantly?
 
 Are your terminals on the UPS?  If the computer is up and running, it's no
 good if no users can sign on!
 
 --Paul E Musselman
 PaulMmn@ix.netcom.com
  >>
Paul, 

   You have made some very good points.  I'll tell everyone a funny story
that dovetails with what you wrote above.  We had a customer that we support,
that already had their own Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP).  Well we had a nice
winter snow storm that knocked out power in the region.  I guess the power
had a few flucuations (Surges & Brownouts) before it went off, and blew a lot
of the components in the computer room. They decided to implement their DRP
when it was estimated it would take 4 to 5 days to get the system backup.

    Now they call up their "Tape Vault" to have the tapes ready for pickup,
but there is a problem.  It seems that the Tape Vault company was really just
a warehouse that stored tapes in these fire proof vaults.  Well they had also
been hit by the power outage and could not open the tape vault doors until
the power had been restored to their building.    So the best DRP plan in
that instance was of no use, as they could not get their tapes to do their
restores.

    Well maybe its not so funny,  but at the time it happened, it was
unbelievable.  By the way, the power was restore a day later and we got the
tapes out.  But as Paul (and Peter  O'Connor from another note)  point out
their are many things to think about when setting up a plan.  

      There is some statistic that 90% of companies that can't return to
business in less than 2 weeks (due to some disaster) go out of business
within the year. 

      Pete Massiello
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