Keizer, CEO of Business Continuity Technologies, led today’s “Business Continuity Planning: The Top IT Priority for 2011” session at Breakaway 2011. The program was the winner of the Attendee-Voted Breakaway Wildcard Session – and with good reason. Events during the last decade – such as the September 11 attacks, Hurricane Katrina and recent tornadoes in the Midwest – have demonstrated how devastating disasters can be to SMBs and large organizations alike.
“I passionately believe business continuity and disaster recovery planning should be the highest priority in the MSP space – and it is the most neglected,” Keizer told the crowd, which filled the meeting room.
Keizer advised VARs in attendance not to sell business continuity like backup services. “Sell business continuity like an insurance policy. It’s a business conversation, not a technology conversation,” he said. Keizer added that at one time he only recommended business continuity planning to clients. Now, he said it’s a required part of all his services.
Mike Semel, a veteran of disaster recovery and VP/CSO at Keizer’s company, told MSPs planning for disaster recovery to expect the worst and work from there. He said assume there will be no power, no cellular service, no ATMs, no credit cards and no clean water. Start with the basics, Semel counseled, have contact info for employees, clients, vendors and other facilities in your continuity plan. And store copies of the plan off-site at multiple other locations, even your home. Some measures require little effort, such as keeping flashlights handy, while others require attention to security, such as having emergency cash on hand.
Updating the plan on a regular basis may seem onerous, and continually retraining employees on changing procedures even more vexing, Semel said, but the risks avoided can be great. Avoiding water damage, for example, could be as simple as making sure all employees know where the main water valve is and how to turn it off.
Clients will need your perspective and help in identifying risks, Semel noted. Natural disasters, such as hurricanes, will seem obvious depending on region. But some risks are less apparent, such as the number of chemicals a neighboring company is storing.
Keizer’s team provided attendees with sample templates for business continuity/disaster recovery plans, facility profile planning kits, scripts for conducting presentations on BC/DR and a BC/DR white paper. And they recommended some online resources:
- Disaster Recovery Institute International -- www.drii.org
- Disaster Recovery Journal -- www.drj.com
- www.ready.gov -- a site provided by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security
- Information portal -- www.continuitycentral.com
