Virtualisation:- Business Continuity Solution or Enabler

www.theagenci.com

Virtualisation: – Business Continuity Solution or Enabler?

VMUG 17 April 2012

Leeds

© Agenci Ltd 2012www.theagenci.com

Hargobind Singh Ahluwalia, Managing DirectorAgenci Ltd


Introductions

Hargobind Singh Ahluwalia

Managing Director at Agenci Ltd | secure business

Business Continuity Consultant - RSA Emerging Markets

Senior Risk Consultant: Deloitte

More than 15 years of experience in business governance, risk and compliance. Extensively worked on delivering Information security and business continuity using industry standard frameworks.

Hold industry certifications CISSP, CISA, ITIL. Trained in Six sigma.

Accountability and responsibility for the delivery of Business Continuity across 21 countries. Developed BCM planning framework and training followed by delivering processes and training to build local country capabilities.

Developed BCM and disaster recovery plans for businesses in Insurance, Retail banking, Finance, Fleet management sectors.

Conducted design review of systems and interfaces for a Global Oil major, to define the scope of disaster recovery testing as part of the business continuity framework.

IT Leader: GE Capital Solution ( Fleet Services)


BCM in news


Olympics 2012 and BCM

• Some of the areas where advice has been provided by various government organisations:• Staffing issues – attendance, leaves etc. • Internet services bandwidth and performance

challenge• Mobile networks capacity• Transport challenges – travel and supplies

• Good example of pro-active support in anticipation of a specific planned event/disruption.

http://www.london2012.com/documents/business/preparing-your-business-for-the-games.pdf


Some potential disruptions

• Travel disruptions due to icy conditions and inclement weather.

• Social/political unrest leading to various disruptions. ( Riots in London, Unrest in Middle east).

• Loss of key staff member/s.

• Loss of key suppliers.

• Loss of work premises due to flood, fire etc.

• Pandemic spread.


What if?

• What would you do tomorrow if the office building was on fire today?

• What would your staff do?• What would your customers do?• What would your competitors do?• What would your bank and shareholders do?


What is Business Continuity Management?

Definition:“Business Continuity Management is an

holistic management process that

identifies potential threats to an

organisation and the impacts to businessoperations that those threats – if realized

– might cause, and which provides a

framework for building organisationalresilience with the capability for an

effective response that safeguards the

interests of its key stakeholders,

reputation, brand, and value-creating

activities”.

© Business Continuity Institute 2010


What does BCM deliver?

Business continuity processes are designed to:• ensure people safety.

• make sure staff are able to cope with the disruption.

• minimise any risk of disruption to services.

• ensure we can maintain our essential services.

• ensure that if a disruption does occur, the main priority will be the recovery of key services within agreed timeframes.

• Provide clear communications to staff, customers, stakeholders and management.

People safety is your number one priority


What BCM is not

BCM is not:• about “everything”.

• just about IT disaster recovery.

• about mitigating every possible threat to the business but aims to have an agreed response to un-predictable incidents.

• just about reacting to an incident but preparing in advance.

• not a professional specialist discipline but should be part of the business process in Business As Usual (BAU).


Embedding BCMEmbedding BCM in the organisation’s

culture means:� Understanding what is critical to our

Business and the threats to our people or our processes

� Identifying options for recovering from incidents (large or small) that could disrupt Business as Usual

� Making plans that enable buildings to be quickly evacuated and Business Critical functions to be resumed as quickly as possible.

� Clearly defining roles and responsibilities

� Ensuring staff in all business areas and sites are involved in producing these plans and are trained to implement them.

� People and plans should be tested on a regular basis to:

� provide assurance plans will be effective

� as a training aid

� to improve the plans

BCM Policy and Programme Management


Components of BCM

Effective Business Continuity is built on 7 P’s:1. Programme – proactively managing the process2. People – roles & responsibilities, awareness & education3. Processes – all organisational processes, including ICT4. Premises – buildings & facilities5. Providers – supply chain, including outsourcing6. Profile – brand, image, reputation7. Performance – benchmarking, evaluation & audit


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Definition:“A documented collection of procedures and information that have been developed, compiled and maintained in readiness for use in an incident, to enable an organisation to continue to deliver its important and urgent activities, at an acceptable and pre-defined level”

• BCP can exist at any level from the whole organisation down to procedural detail within a department

• BCP can be scoped by product, location, department and scenario

• We cannot plan for everything –so ensure plans cover what is needed and at the right level

• Plans do not need to be large and complicated - they need to be appropriate


Virtualisation benefits

• Recovering from disaster related to IT infrastructure to improve up-time.

• Better feasibility and recoverability for the infrastructure.

• Can allow the IT function to dedicate more time supporting functional recovery.

• When implemented correctly can assist DR process by shortening Recovery Point Objective and Recovery Time Objective.

• Improves portability to a range of physical infrastructure.

• When delivered for end-user devices can deliver quick turnaround during the Work Area recovery.


Summary• Like Risk Management, the responsibility for BCM rest on

everyone’s shoulder and not just the BCM Manager.

• Virtualisation is a great enabler for the technology recovery but there is much more to BCM.

• BCM is the clear way to demonstrate to stakeholders that the company has prepared, and can effectively manage interruptions to it’s Business.

• Having a embedded and tested BCM in the business demonstrate pro-active management and in many cases provide improvement opportunities.

• Industry data proves that interruptions are inevitable for all organisations.

"He who fails to plan is planning to fail“

Winston Churchill (and others!)


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Questions?

Virtualisation:- Business Continuity Solution or Enabler

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