SunGard India

By https://twitter.com/rlapedis" target="_blank">Ron LaPedis, CISSP-ISSAP, ISSMP, MBCP, MBCI… Read more

http://blog.sungardas.com/?attachment_id=1127" rel="attachment wp-att-1127">http://blog.sungardas.com/wp_uploads/hurricane-300x196.jpg" alt="Hurricane Preparedness" width="300" height="196" />Apparently what’s headed for the East Coast is a “monster” of a storm. It’s so bad, in fact, that they’re calling it, “http://news.discovery.com/earth/frankenstorm-need-to-know-121026.html#mkcpgn=rssnws1" target="_blank">Frankenstorm.” The prediction is that this confluence of forces (including Hurricane Sandy and two other weather fronts) will combine to hit the Northeastern part of the United States the week of October 29 with a force and fury not seen since 1991′s “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Perfect_Storm" target="_blank">Perfect Storm” (which, coincidentally, also happened during Halloween week).

So what can your company and your employees do to prepare for what may be coming? If you haven’t already done some rigorous business" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.sungardas.com/Solutions/Software/BusinessContinuityManagementSoftware/LDRPS/Pages/LDRPS.aspx">business continuity and disaster recovery planning, now might be a bit too late to start. But you can at least make sure that you have copies of your critical information in more than one location in case the storm damages or destroys your primary computing or storage infrastructure. And, it’s almost – but not quite – too late to locate and sign up for a cloud" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://blog.sungardas.com/?p=1505">cloud backup solution, even if you don’t yet have a way to recover your data. At least your data will be safe and you can worry about getting it back later.

If you do have a plan, you’ll need to dust it off and look up the part about “employee notification.” SunGard has a significant number of employees in the Northeastern United States, and we used our own SunGard NotiFind" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.sungardas.com/Solutions/Software/BusinessContinuityManagementSoftware/NotiFind/Pages/Notifind.aspx">NotiFind software this afternoon (yup, we eat our own dog food) to tell those potentially affected what the forecasters are predicting and remind them of what they need to do now and next week.

What we are telling our employees is probably important for any company, so let me share some of it in case it might be helpful to you. First of all, every employee should be ready at any time to live without power and communications for at least 72" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://72hours.org/">72 hours, which means having additional food, water, clothing, and toiletries on hand. Employees should be making alternative arrangements to take care of dependents should they be isolated at the office (such as ensuring that their school-aged children are picked up and cared for).

Non-essential employees should discuss alternative work options with their managers, while mission-critical employees may want to make plans to be in the office or at their backup" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.sungardas.com/workforce">backup work site before the storm hits, fortified with enough resources to ride Frankenstorm out. Many companies have “work at home” plans for disasters such as this, but there are reasons why telework" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://blog.sungardas.com/?p=1172">telework may not be the perfect alternative work strategy in a regional disaster such as this.

Some other actions you might advise employees take include:

• Update their personal emergency contacts (alternate information if evacuation occurs).


• Make sure they know where their family is and how to contact them. The best bet is to have everyone contact a specific person who lives outside of the disaster area. The chances are higher that their call will get though than if they call someone else within the storm area. (SMS usually works better than voice calls.)


• Update their contact information in the employee address book to make sure that their manager and coworkers know how to reach them.


• Review hurricane preparedness plans for both your company and personal situations.


• If you have oil lamps or generators, ensure that you have enough fuel for them. Make sure that anything that needs batteries has fresh ones available.


• Don’t forget that Voice over IP (VoIP), cable television, and cell towers may not be working. Even if they are, your cordless phone and cell phone might be out of power.

SunGard has been helping companies recover" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.sungardas.com/KnowledgeCenter/CaseStudiesAndTestimonials/Pages/CaseStudiesTestimonials.aspx">recover from disasters for over 30 years and we are ready when you are. Our own key employees have been briefed on the situation and are prepared to take our customers’ calls and help them recover. For us, “Frankenstorm” will be no different than any other disaster, and even though we hope you don’t need to call us for help, we’ll be here if you need us.