By Brian Fonseca, Computerworld

Monday, June 04, 2007 4:00 AM PDT

 

 

Katrina’s lessons prompted IT departments to review disaster management and recovery plans.

 

 

While bracing his IT systems to weather another hurricane season, Max Prather can’t help but recall just how swiftly undetected weak points in his IT disaster recovery plan were cracked by Hurricane Katrina.

 

“We thought we were prepared but did not count on a complete disaster. It may have well been a nuclear bomb; that’s how much it affected our business,” said Prather, IT manager for the Louisiana Organ Procurement Agency, based in Metairie, La.

 

The non-profit organization’s offices sit less than eight miles west of New Orleans, which was hit head on by the massive storm in Aug., 2005.

 

“I would hate to see any company go through [such] a disaster to see exactly what’s wrong with its plan,” Prather noted.

 

Last week marked the official beginning of the U.S. hurricane season, which runs from June 1 thru Nov. 30. Weather forecasters say conditions this year are ripe for spawning several major storms.

 

Researchers at Colorado State University in Fort Collins say that 17 named storms, including five with winds of more than 115 miles per hour could form in the Atlantic Ocean this year. By comparison, a typical hurricane season includes two such major storms, noted Philip Klotzbach, research associate at the school.

 

Prior to late 2005, the organ procurement agency’s disaster plan focused on having some patient and employee data hosted on NeoSpire Inc. servers in Dallas. However, when Katrina hit New Orleans, employees scattered and the agency lost power, phone service and Internet access, exposing gaping holes in its electronic communication strategy, said Prather.

 

After the storm, Prather said the agency deployed the Neverfail for Microsoft Exchange disaster recovery system from Austin, Texas-based Neverfail Group Ltd. to ensure uninterrupted employee connectivity throughout service shutdowns, Prather said.

 

The organization has also added an internal backup generator and failover phone system, implemented daily backup procedures, and constructed a hot site and duplicate server environment in its Shreveport, La., facility, Prather said.

 

The agency continues use the hosted servers in Dallas to back-up patient data, he added.

 

Thomas Comella, CIO of Neighborhood Centers Inc. in Houston, also updated its backup plan following a major hurricane. In fact, Comella said, he decided to abandon the company’s policy of storing backed up data in a nearby facility while the company’s employees were scrambling to evacuate from Houston ahead of Hurricane Rita in 2005.

 

The non-profit operator of community centers and educational facilities in southeastern Texas earlier this year began using the ViaRemote backup and managed services offering from Arsenal Digital Solution USA Inc. in Cary, N.C..

 

“We had a couple of close calls a few years ago and we knew we needed to do something with our data,” Comella said. “My main goal for this [hurricane] season was to get this [backup service] up and running so my data would be safe off-site and out of the city.”

 

Other users say spending money on unused disaster recover plans for years can prove prescient when a major storm hits.

 

For example, the Calcasieu Teachers and Employee Credit Union in Lake Charles, La., made little use of its contract with SunGard Availability Services in Wayne, Pa., to provide backup systems in an emergency for about eight years prior to the arrival of Hurricane Rita.

 

But once the storm did hit, a mobile SunGard Mobile Data Center took over the IT systems and kept the company in business, said CEO Bruce Thomas, making the investment pay off.

 

“Going into the [SunGard] contract, we felt like you have to look at what is your biggest threat,” Thomas said. “For us, the biggest threat is a hurricane. If you live on the Gulf Coast you have to be prepared for this issue.”

 

James McManus, a technology risk management professional Jefferson Wells International Inc., a Brookfield, Wisc.-based consulting firm suggested that companies take several steps to protect against major hurricanes.

 

First, he said, IT managers should distribute to employees USB thumb drives carrying critical data and application backups that could be used from remote locations in case of an emergency. The drives should be kept up to date and stored offsite, he said.

 

He also said that companies should set aside time to perform a complete business impact analysis, including ranking the importance of systems to determine which systems should first be brought back online after a disaster.

 

Todd R. Weiss contributed to this story.

 

 

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