Disaster Recovery Planning inBusiness Continuity Planning

Faculty of Computer Science Institute of Systems Architecture, Chair of Computer Networks

Dresden, 2/2/2010 Tenshi Harahara@inf.tu-dresden.de

Agenda

1 Necessity

2 Planning

3 Testing

4 Use-case

5 Conclusion

6 Sources2

1 Necessity

Resuming business operations has been important throughout history.

-Romans used multiple messengers for redundant delivery

-Knights of Templar coded redundant information into billing

-Businessmen create carbon-copies of orders, bills, etc.

-Recent reminder: 9/11-attacks

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© Reuters

1 Analysis of the 9/11-disaster

4

© Reuters

Directly affected area

Area containing the backup-sites

- Several redundant backup-sites existed

All within WTC or close proximity(within downtown Manhattan)

WTC-buildings designed as mutual backup-site for each other

Nobody expected both buildings to collapse

- Business-Operations (incl. brokerage) were down for weeks

Lead to worldwide financial collapse

1 Results

- US government issued the Emergency Preparedness and Business Continuity Standard

- developed by the NFPA

- endorsed by the NIST and DHS

- also focusing on actions after terror-attacks

- Other standards: BS 25999-1, ISO/IEC 27001:2005

Source: SBA, 2006

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1 Necessity

- Strategic planning can help

- One must know which risks exist

- After investing into solutions, one shall maintain them!

A BCP is the result of a strategic Business Impact Analysis!

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Marvin says:

2 Business Impact Analysis

Goals:

- Assess risks

- Evaluate the possible

- Make suggestions for solutions

Limits:

- Can not give a 100% accurate evaluation of costs and benefits

- Is only as good as sense of realism

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BusinessImpact

Analysis

BusinessImpact

Analysis

Businessoperations

andtransactions

Businessoperations

andtransactions

BCP/DRPBCP/DRP

RisksRisks Costs

Costs

dero

gate aff

ect

affect affect

modify

limit/

mod

ify

limit/

mod

ify

evalu

ate

d b

ygenera

tes

TestingTestingevaluates

determines

2 Knowing the limits

One can never be prepared for everything!

Vogons could decide to build an interstellar highway… And Earth could be in the way!

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2 Economic Utility vs. Accounting

Economic point of view:

Total Benefit ∙ Probability = Economic Monetary Value

Accounting point of view:

Return on Investment = [(Benefits – Costs) / Costs] ∙ 100%

Putting BCP/DRP down to numbers puts the entire plan at risk of competing for financial resources with other departments!

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66 no or almost no data-lossno or almost no data-loss

33 electronic vaulting/bunkering

electronic vaulting/bunkering22 data-backup with hot-sitedata-backup with hot-site

11 data-backup with no hot-site

data-backup with no hot-site

2 Share’s 7-Tier model

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00 no off-site datano off-site data

44 point-in-time copiespoint-in-time copies

55 transaction integritytransaction integrity

77 highly automated and integrated

highly automated and integrated

2 Share’s 7-Tier model

- Higher tiers do not necessary include the lower

- Often leads to misunderstandings

Serious solution-providers won’t suggest solutions of Tier 4 or below

Mostly, ready-to-use solutions with a sort of “turn on; works fine”-guarantee (classified by Tier 6 and 7) are the solutions of choice

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3 Testing

- Businesses often do not actually have a working BCP/DRP-solution

- Most testing is limited to one initial test

- Periodic testing leads to additional expenses

- Difficult for IT-experts to justify testing-expenses

- “The severity rather than the frequency of loss is what can be used to justify the additional expenses associated with disaster recovery planning and testing. In a worst-case scenario, information critical to the business may be permanently lost.”(Harry L. Waldron, 2008)

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3 Testing

Mostly forgotten:

- Regular testing leads to a training-effect

- Prepares all affected to face actual recovery challenges

- Optimizes responses to be more efficient

- Testing must be integrated, non-negligible part of maintaining

- Benefit of testing hardly quantifiable, but costs still easier to calculate than the potential loss due improper recovery process

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determines

evaluates

RecoveryProcessRecoveryProcess

3 Testing

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DisasterDisasterCounter-Measure

s

Counter-Measure

s

NormalOperationNormal

Operation

AbnormalOperationAbnormalOperation

defi

nes

reco

gniz

es

analyzes

defines & tr

iggers

disturbs

healscounters

and a

naly

zes

evaluates &

learns from

BCP/DRPBCP/DRPTestingTesting

4 Solution-provider: Swiss Data Safe AG

• Facilities placed in hardened bunkers within mountains in the Swiss Alps

• Facilities physically detached

• Each facility has redundant outward-connections

• Self-sustaining, EMP-resistive infrastructure

• “we deliver what you need, but don’t ask how it works”-mentality.

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16

© Hans Rudolf Schneider

4 Further use-cases

• Plans are considered business-secrets

• Implementation-details are secret

• Fear of attacks against BCP/DRP

• BCP/DRP is a good source of money

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5 Conclusion

• Government regulations suggest existence of standing plans within “important” businesses

• Many businesses actually do not take the necessary steps in order to have a BCP/DRP

• Those taking steps often have ineffective plans

• Testing is imperative, but often neglected

• Current secrecy of solution-providers and solution-users combined with future demand for disaster-readiness shows necessity of academic research to prepare future system-administrators for tasks awaiting

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6 Sources

• Miller (Protiviti Inc.). From Expense to Asset. KnowledgeLeader. 2008.

• British Standards Institute. BS 25999-1, BS 25999-2. Standard. 2006.

• International Organization for Standardization. ISO/IEC 27001:2005. Standard. 2005.

• Marquis. The Paradox of the 9s. 2006. http://www.itsmsolutions.com/newsletters/DITYvol2iss47.htm.

• Thinking the Unthinkable - Trading Firms Look for Backups Sites. Traders. 2001.

• United States National Archives and Records. 2006 Annual NARA-report.

• United States Small Business Administration. How to prepare for Disaster. SBA Small Business Resource. 2006.

• Waldron. Windows Tips. Testing Windows disaster recovery plans. 2008. http://searchwinit.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid1_gci1299649,00.html.

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