Background
An industry leader in IT distributions and business process outsourcing (BPO) services was experiencing tremendous growth, growing from a $4 billion corporation to a $10 billion corporation in a seven-year period.
A new contract from a large international partner required our client to have a Disaster Recovery (DR) and Business Continuity Plan (BCP) in place for their Data Centers, which were located in eastern Canada, the East Coast and the San Francisco Bay Area.
Info Plus International consultants were called in to execute and document a Disaster Recovery test in the East Coast Data Center to be used as the recovery plan for the Bay Area Data Center. The project entailed migrating the Bay Area Data Center to the East Coast, and to perform an end-to-end Disaster Recovery test in the Bay Area as a fallback and recovery plan for the East Coast site.
The Challenges
The client had little experience in developing a comprehensive Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity Plan nor did they have the bandwidth to spend on this project. In addition, the project involved people in locations all over the U.S. and Canada, as well as a technical group in China. Also, there were software versioning issues that needed to be addressed, source code that needed to be changed, network configurations that needed modification, and servers that needed standardization.
The Solution
IPI consultants used their expertise and knowledge to develop and deliver a roadmap for successfully facilitating the planning, defining and execution of the Disaster Recovery Test. We utilized our technical expertise as well as strong project management methodologies to help our client with implementing a successful Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Plans and ensuring that it was fully tested.
Our team identified numerous interdependencies and developed a resource plan to address these issues. A critical component of our efforts included the evaluation and documentation of the risks, and methods of mitigating those risks. Following industry Best Practices as set by authorities in the industry including NIST, ISO, and SANS, IPI consultants provided the client with a strategy and methodology for developing their DR/BCP.The following Project Planning and Management Deliverables were created for the client:
- Definition Chart of Roles and Responsibilities
- Schedule of Events
- Weekly Written Project Status Updates
- Test Plans
- Unit Testing (pre-move)
- System Test (pre-move)
- Production Test (post-move)
- Development of Pre-Test Checklist
- Management of Pre-Test Checklist
- Test oversight and documentation of results
The Results
The biggest victory was that an actual disaster occurred and the Disaster Recovery site on the East Coast was deployed successfully. Because of the amount of planning that was done and the work completed in collaboration with the client, the client’s business operations did not suffer an extended period of interruption and the disaster did not significantly impact their revenues (which could have been significant for a $10 billion company).
Additionally, external pressures from not having a Disaster Recovery or Business Continuity Plan in place were alleviated and the client was able to continue their growth and realize revenues.
This process enabled the client to have a better understanding of their business environment, which enabled them to be better equipped to make decisions about their business.
After going through this process, it was decided to move the main Data Center from the Bay Area to the East Coast.
