It’s nice to see that the pandemic fear generated some positive change with respect to IT disaster recovery. Now if on the ERM community could get some traction from the global threat or some other infectious disease… one can only hope.
You know what? I think I am going to create a virus like they did in 12 Monkeys (or at the very least start blogging or Tweeting about it). Maybe that’s what it will take to put the fear of the gods in CFOs and Boards so I get some ERM work.
Have a read at “The H1N1 pandemic and IT disaster recovery planning: Lessons learned” by Heather Darcy at SearchDisasterRecovery.com
The H1N1 influenza virus that grabbed the attention of IT people around the world last year will have an impact on disaster recovery (DR) and business continuity (BC) planning that will be felt for years to come, according to DR planning experts.
The H1N1 influenza virus was first detected last April, and it was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) in June. Individuals were urged to get vaccinated, to wash their hands to prevent the spread of the virus, and to stay away from infected individuals, particularly if you were in a risk group (children, pregnant women and the elderly). Businesses were urged to update their disaster recovery (DR) plans and pandemic recovery plans — and organizations without one could be in big trouble.
Although the H1N1 virus, also known as swine flu, hasn’t turned out to be as devastating in the Unites States as many had predicted, there were lessons learned from the experience for IT organizations involved in DR. One is that the H1N1 virus made pandemic planning an IT issue for the first time, rather than just a human resources (HR) issue. It also presented different issues than the threats posed by incidents such as hurricanes, earthquakes, or terrorist strikes, which many disaster recovery policies are planned around.