How to make an organization more resilient
power supplies (UPS) for critical servers, network connections, and selected personal computers to keep the most essential applications running.
In addition, cooling systems should be supported by backup generators. Computer rooms can heat up quickly if computers operate on backup power without adequate, precision cooling. Monitoring for heat and humidity also are essential in critical computer rooms. Heat is the biggest threat to UPS battery life, and temperature increases can reduce the lifespan of network equipment by half – and also cause unplanned system interruptions when agency operations are most critical.
Having a power backup system does not eliminate the requirement to regularly inspect and maintain the power infrastructure. System administrators should periodically ensure that automatic transfer switches are configured so that there is little lag time to disrupt UPS power to computer systems. At the same time, they should take the opportunity to conduct regular battery inspections and replacement. Like flashlight and smoke detector batteries, UPS systems need to be inspected before they are needed.
Finally, if the system must stay operation, building redundancy into the power system is another proven means to ensure power system reliability and, therefore, network availability. Redundancy enables maintenance of a UPS module without affecting power to connected equipment. It also increases fault tolerance.
4. Identify and appoint a cross-functional preparedness team and a recovery team
Organizations should pull together a cross-functional team from appropriate departments that can include computer operations, applications development, server and systems administration, facilities, key service departments, data security, physical security and network operations. This team can identify and prioritize critical processes, design the overall process for recovery, select an outside service provider, conduct tests, identify members of the preparedness team and document the plan.
The cross-functional preparedness team will select the recovery team, which will participate in recovery activities after any declared disaster. While the recovery team can be similar to the cross-functional preparedness team, its members should not be identical, even within a small organization. Additional members should include the executive sponsor (e.g., CIO or COO), key stakeholder representatives (e.g., community liaison), and representatives from outside service providers.
5. Document, test, and update the disaster preparedness plan
The cross-functional preparedness team should document a disaster preparedness plan that clearly defines the role of each individual on both the cross-functional preparedness and recovery teams. Documentation should include updated configuration diagrams of the hardware, software and network components to be used in the recovery. The plan should include
