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Welcome. SDN Communications is taking a more focused approach by bringing you newsletters with a single topic. We’ll dig deeper into business continuity and disaster recovery.

BCDRBUSINESS CONTINUITY DISASTER RECOVERY

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FF&M banks gain confidence with continuity help from SDN“We went with SDN last year. It was really the first time we went with anyone local. It’s been awesome,” says Darlene Gonnerman, senior network administra-tor for First Farmers & Merchants Bank. “They care. They have the Midwestern work ethic. There are some really intelligent people who work there.”

Helping companies design, build and maintain good business continuity systems is among the specialties of Sioux Falls-based SDN Communications.

FF&M has 20 network locations scattered around Minnesota, including 17 banks. The network also includes connections to an operations center, a mortgage-processing office and a holding company office.

Increasing network strength

FF&M started refining its disaster recovery plans in 2006, Gonnerman says.A lot of the groundwork had been done. With multiple vendors involved, coordination could be difficult. The company that previously managed FF&M’s routers outsourced the duty to workers in another country.

Vendors don’t always cooperate well with each other, Gonnerman says, but SDN made serving the bank’s interest its primary objective. Now SDN is the bank’s primary vendor.

FF&M switched to SDN’s Managed Router Service. Some branches also have SDN’s Managed Firewall Service. SDN provides some of the broadband connectivity for the bank system but also connects with other carriers.

Luverne and Pipestone are tied directly into SDN’s broadband trunk line with a fiber connection. In addition, sites in Luverne and Pipestone have a point-to-point connection. Other branches are linked to the bank’s data center and to each other with various circuitry.

Gonnerman, who is assisted by network administrator Kevin Kittams, says she used to say a little prayer every time a storm was imminent because she wasn’t sure if network protections would work right. Now, she says she’s “leaps and bounds” more confident.

So is her boss, Marlene Trageser, the bank system’s chief information officer. SDN has been very helpful in assisting FF&M develop its system, Trageser says.

“We have conducted a number of tests of the plan that we have in place, and it has worked as it was intended,” she says.

SDN has demonstrated that it takes business continuity seriously, Trageser says.

The proximity of Sioux Falls to the FF&M’s anchor institutions was a factor in the bank’s decision to do business with SDN. Luverne is about 25 miles from Sioux Falls and Pipestone is about 50 miles away.

“Everyone depends on being connected so much more now than even 10 years ago. The expectation is to have everything connected 24 hours a day,” Trageser says. “We feel confident with SDN and their system to help us keep our system up for us and our customers.”

Read the full blog at http://bit.ly/FFM-BC.

“It’s been awesome,” says Darlene Gonnerman, senior network administrator for FF&M. “They care. They have the Midwestern work ethic. There are some really intelligent people who work there.”

Power outages or accidental fiber cuts

are the biggest temporary threats to business

continuity and services at FF&M branch banks. However, a good plan

ensures data will never be lost.

Take a look at SDN’s Business Solutions for more

detailed information about the products and solutions it provides to

companies and organizations.

SDN Routers arepart of the FF&Mcontinuity plan Everyone depends on

being connected so much more now than even 10 years

ago. The expectation is to have everything connected 24 hours a day. We feel

confident with SDN and their system to help us keep our

system up for us and our customers.

Marlene Trageser, Chief Information Officer

First Farmers & Merchants Bankof Minnesota

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Cloud Storage Features & FunctionalityCloud Storage & Backup works automatically, backing up files as often as you schedule it. Even if you accidentally delete a file, our system automatically saves a copy of it for you. By cutting out manual steps, we remove the possibility of human error and equipment failure. In addition, our software is compliant with stringent compliance standards, so you know your data is both safe and secure.

BCDR Step One: Assess RisksKeeping key business functions alive during a disaster takes a lot of advance planning and practice.

Getting a business back up to pre-disaster level takes an even greater commitment to high-quality preparation.

The statistical evidence is clear: companies that suffer a major disaster without a good contingency plan in place are likely to go out of business.

Disaster planning is especially important at SDN because other organizations rely on the company to help them deal with possible disruptions in their businesses.

The highly important first step in good business continuity disaster recovery (BCDR) planning is to conduct a risk assessment. As the names suggests, a risk assessment (or RA) helps an organization identify threats to its business continuity. The components of good RA include:

• Noting critical business functions and information such as the controls in place that reduce exposure to risks.

• Identifying the key resources, including staff members and equipment, upon which every business function depends. From there, the adequacy of current protective measures, such as staff training and backup systems, can be evaluated.

• Ranking each business function in terms of exposure to risk. Common threats also should be identified and ranked. Then identify cost-effective strategies for reducing vulnerabilities.

Ranking threats helps a company determine its priorities, Baldwin says.

For more on creating your own BCDR plan, read the rest of this article on our blog at http://bit.ly/BCDRStepOne.

• Unbeatable Security

• Fast Restoration

• Block-Level Backup

• Microsoft® Exchange

• Retention & Archiving

• Flexible Scheduling

• Easily backup, review and manage your online backup account

• Quickly access frequently used tasks

• Provide multiple classes of services to user base

• Always know how much data you’ve backed up

• Set backup schedules that work for you

“Business continuity and disaster recovery plans are absolutely critical to the long-term success of most companies,” says Cassie Baldwin, a certified continuity manager at SDN Communications.

A Snapshot: The Acronis Global Disaster Recovery

Index 2012

86% of businesses surveyed experienced downtime

in the previous year.

2.2 days average downtime

per outage.

$336,363 in lost productivity

due to outages.

For the full report:http://bit.ly/QnE29a

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Tornado survivor gives disaster planning presentation

A violent tornado ripped through Joplin, Mo., on May 22, 2011, killing 158 people and causing more than $2 billion in property damage.

It destroyed or seriously damaged thousands of homes and businesses. The extent of the devastation was not immediately evident to survivors, however.Gary Duncan was the president and CEO of the Freeman Health System when the tornado hit Joplin late on a Sunday afternoon. He rode out the storm with his wife in the basement of their home. Then, he tried to get to the hospital.Storm water, fallen trees and debris blocked his drive, but with help from police officers, he got there. The hospital treated about 1,000 people in 18 hours.

Duncan had just participated in a disaster drill a few days before the tornado. Even so, the reality of the tornado was staggering.

“I don’t know if anyone is prepared for a calamity of this scope,” says Duncan, who has retired from the hospital system but chairs the Joplin Redevelopment Corporation. “No one here, at the time, had any idea how big it was.”

The top-level, EF-5 tornado left a 13-mile path of destruction in the southwestern Missouri city. The rain-wrapped tornado presented challenges to Joplin, a regional center of approximately 52,000 residents, on a muggy day that suddenly turned dark.

St. John’s Regional Medical Center (now known as Mercy) was seriously damaged, leaving Freeman Health with the only functioning hospital in the city.Freeman Health had to contend with flooded rooms, power outages, patients with traumatic injuries, and getting employees to work. Medical providers raced against time to complete surgeries as

Uptime University: BCDR

Gary DuncanFACHEDuncan Consulting

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Tornado survivor gives disaster planning presentationwater pressure in the community dropped because of structural damage. Routine tasks, such as identifying patients, became significant challenges.

In 2011, prior to the tornado, Freeman Health also dealt with a paralyzing blizzard. Each weather event created unique complications for the hospital.

“The takeaway from this, for business and industry, is you’ve got to collaborate ahead of time. You have to have plans on paper. And you have to do the exercise ahead of time,” Duncan says.

SDN offers equipment and services designed to help small and midsize businesses keep their network information secure even in the worst of any circumstances.For more information about SDN and its services, see www.sdncommunications.com or call 800-247-1442.

If you missed Duncan’s May 28 Uptime U presentation you can watch the full presentation at http://bit.ly/UptimeU-BCDR. We’ll post the presentation shortly after the event.

Bringing you the industry experts that can help you start a BCDR plan.

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Trends suggest that the future of data centers is brightAs the director of strategic initiatives for the Sioux Falls Development Foundation, Dean Dziedzic is one of the point men in the development of Sioux Falls’ information-assurance industry.

The organization promotes the city as a great site for the location and expansion of several industries, including data centers.

Sioux Falls already is home to more than a dozen data centers, including two owned by SDN Communications, and the foundation would like to see the number grow.

Dziedzic says the national trend is for companies to colocate with other tenants in data centers rather than develop their own for individual use. “Colocation is kind of a hot topic as opposed to a stand-alone data center,” he says.

SDN has a colocation facility in northwestern Sioux Falls and enough land to add more of them.

In addition, Cosentry, which is a business partner of SDN’s, operates a colocation facility in northeastern Sioux Falls. Cosentry also has space for serving its clients in SDN’s data center in northwestern Sioux Falls. SDN also has a filled data center on its main campus in central Sioux Falls.

Kevin Dohrmann, cofounder and chief technology officer of Cosentry, says products are being created now that were not even dreamed about 20 years ago.

Many of these products require data movement and storage. So, companies such as Cosentry and SDN will have significant roles to plays as companies and institutions produce more data and want to move it securely at fast speeds, Dohrmann says.

“These are pretty exciting times,” he says. “The future is bright.”

Why does your business need MPLS?

MPLS networks are not appropriate for every situation. However, they are appropriate for enterprise networks looking to:

• Control network infrastructure

• Enhance performance, reliability and efficiency

• Provide multiple classes of services to user base

• Extend a virtual piece of the backbone network to organizational entities

• Set the priority for each label assigned to a data packet to ensure performance of demanding applications

• Support the convergence of multiple technologies and/or multiple traffic types onto a single IP network

• Put in place a major piece of your disaster recovery plan. Because no location is ever isolated, MPLS enables continuous access to systems and data

Remote A2x1.54Mbps

Remote B1.54Mbps

Remote C1.54Mbps

Remote D2x1.54Mbps

Remote E1.54Mbps

MPLS100% fully

meshed networkby default

Trends in the data security industry

Increasing security: Keeping data secure is a big and

growing challenge for the industry as a whole.

Continuing virtualization

of servers, client work stations and workloads:

The creation of virtual platforms and devices has fueled the rapid growth

of cloud computing and all the complexities that come along with it.

Making use of data:

The demand for data storage is growing at astonishing rates. How will all this information be used?

Guiding vast networking possibilities:

The cost of connectivity has gone down, which has brought

networking capabilities to more people.

These forces are driving the creation of new applications and the need to find ways to productively use them.

For the full story:http://bit.ly/datacentertrends

When physicians in Sioux Falls and other communities in Avera Health’s five-state region need to consult in real time to care for patients, a highly-reliable level of connectivity is a must.

SDN Communications of Sioux Falls supplies high-speed private lines for electronic communications – in addition to Internet connectivity – to much of Avera’s vast network.

The Sioux Falls-based health care system includes hospitals, clinics, residential care facilities and medical equipment outlets in more than 300 locations in South Dakota, North Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, and Iowa.

SDN also helps Avera securely store and protect electronic records of patient information.

Avera Health owns and operates a data center on SDN property that SDN helps oversee. In addition, Avera leases space in a data center that SDN owns to supplement its electronic storage capacity.

The two data centers, which are a few miles apart, are connected by super high-speed transmission lines so that data can be transferred from one center to the other, if the possibility of trouble arises at one location or the other.Each of the data centers are protected with redundant services. But to protect its electronic information even further, Avera stores taped copies of its elec-tronic information at a third location.

SDN services allow Avera Health to store all of its electronic medical records near its headquarters in Sioux Falls and provide authorized people with secure access to the information.

“That integration capability allows doctors and patients to see their records no matter where they are,” Burkett says.

Fast, reliable connectivity on dedicated lines allows doctors to remotely moni-tor patients in intensive care units, for example. It allows specialists in different locations to consult with each other and with patients. It allows pharmacists to review and approve drug-treatment recommendations.

Avera’s high level of performance has been recognized nationally as well as regionally. SDN is happy to play a small, behind-the-scenes role in helping Avera Health deliver such top-notch services to its patients.

Read the full blog at http://bit.ly/FastSecureReliable.3

Health system depends on fast, secure, reliable connections

SDN plays “a significant and absolutely critical role in maintaining the connectivity between sites,” says Jim Burkett, vice president of technology services for Avera Health.

Steps to prepare for a disruptive event Symantec, in its 2012 Disaster Preparedness Survey, recognized it was seeing technology investments aligning with business continuity disaster recovery (BCDR). “But we’re also seeing that these new strategic technology investments (virtualization, cloud and mobility) can also align to a disaster preparedness strategy, especially when considered and analyzed in the planning process.”

Symantec top suggestions to prepare for a disruptive event:

1. Start planning immediately. If you have not already started, begin developing your disaster preparedness plan today.

2. Implement strategic technologies. There are many solutions available for BCDR. Implement technologies that fit with your overall technology plans for backup and recovery. For example offsite storage with automated virtual conversion so you are ready for failover.

3. Protect your information completely. Ensure that your backup plans use appropriate security measures.

4. Test your disaster preparedness. At least quarterly you should review and test your disaster preparedness.

When disaster strikes, you don’t want to say you are lucky. You want to be able to say you were prepared. So start by planning today.

(Symantec Corporation, 2012)

Tech Support Contact

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24/7 Technical Support/Outage Report/Trouble Ticketing: 877-287-8023Website Contact Form: sdncommunications.com/contact-us

Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery DefinedBusiness Continuity (BC) is the ability of a business or organization to run at near normal capacity in the event of an infrastructure failure (caused by any issue –human error, utility failure, software or hardware failure, etc). The key is the majority of the infrastructure remains intact.Kurt Buckardt, CTO of Konsultek

Disaster Recovery (DR) Planning and implementation of procedures and facilities for use when essential systems are not available for a period long enough to have a significant impact on the business. Disasters may include natural, hardware failure, software failure, theft, data corruption or loss, human error, media failure, communications, security, virus, legal, change in legislation, and personnel unavailability.Dictionary.com

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2900 W. 10th StreetSioux Falls, SD 57104800.247.1442www.sdncommunications.com

PRSRT STDU.S. POSTAGE

PAIDSIOUX FALLS, SDPERMIT NO. 7972

TESTPLAN

ROUTE

BACKUPCRISIS

REACT

STORE

RECOVER

BCDR planningis an ongoing cycle.