Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: business, business continuity, business continuity software, business disaster, Continuity of Operations, COOP, KingsBridge Disaster Recovery, Movember, Phoenix software, swine flu, swine flu education
What is it?
The CDC announced in April 2009 a new influenza called 2009 H1N1, Swine Flu. Why is it called “Swine Flu”? Lab test show that the virus is very similar to influenza that is normally found in pigs in North America.
So far, 6250 people worldwide have died from H1N1. Of that, 4175 have been from the United States. Because of the rapid spread, countries like Sweden have started selling Tamiflu without a prescription.
The World Health Organization has been monitoring the spread of the virus and has seen the spread affect over 200 countries and territories.
How do you get it?
People infected with the virus can spread the virus by touching their nose and mouth and touching other surfaces. Also, infected persons coughing or sneezing in public can spread the virus.
Because the virus is highly contagious, if you suspect that you have the virus, you should seek immediate attention from your physician. Also avoiding contact with others will reduce the ability of transporting the virus.
Although all cases do not carry the same severity, most cases do not require medications to treat, but in those severe cases, patients have been prone to develop pneumonia.
Symptoms:
- Fever – particularly a fever of over 100 degrees
- Sore throat
- Cough
- Chills and fatigue
- Body aches
- Headache
- Occasionally, vomiting and diarrhea
- Trouble breathing, including rapid breathing.
- Gray or bluish skin color
- Not drinking enough fluids
- Sleeping constantly and not interacting when awake
- Being especially irritable
- Not urinating or no tears when crying
- The symptoms improve but then return with fever and worse cough
How do you protect yourself???
- Stay home when you’re sick or have influenza symptoms.
- Avoid close contact with people who are sick.
- Cover your mouth and nose with a tissue when coughing or sneezing
- Washing your hands often will help protect you from illness.
- Avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth
How do you handle employees with it??
Large employers like CitiGroup and Goldman Sachs have acquired vaccine for their employees to help cut down on the spread. Although this may not be possible in all cases, employers should consider developing a corporate policy regarding work areas and staff affected by the virus.
Thing to consider:
- Publish information regarding H1N1
- Provide contact information for local health departments
- Provide anti-bacterial hand wash in common areas
- Require employees to keep workstations clean.
- Common areas should also be wiped with greater frequency
KingsBridge is a Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity company specializing in Software, Seminars and Consulting. If you are looking for a Microsoft Office integrated recovery planning tool, Phoenix is not only an excellent tool, but the only completely integrated planning tool. Our seminars (online and in-house) are some of the longest running seminars in the recovery business. KingsBridge uses turn-key consulting for those who need the plan done, right the first time. For more information about KingsBridge, checkout www.disasterrecovery.com
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: business, business continuity, business continuity software, business disaster, Continuity of Operations, COOP, KingsBridge Disaster Recovery, Movember, plus 3 networks, prostate cancer, rim, swine flu
I have decided to join a global movement that is bringing much needed attention to prostate cancer. I’m doing this by growing a Moustache this Movember, the month formerly known as November. My commitment is to grow a moustache all November to change the face of men’s health and I want you to join me.
The funds we raise during our Moustache journey go to Prostate Cancer Canada.
What many people don’t know is that 1 in 6 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime. Prostate cancer is the most common cancer to afflict Canadian men with 25,500 diagnosed and 4,400 dying from the disease each year. Facts like these have convinced me I should get involved.
To join my Movember team called Team Fatty Canada go to http://ca.movember.com/register/60354
Once registered you’ll be sent all the information needed to get donations and get growing as part of my Movember team.
Learn more about Movember by watching the Intro Video at http://ca.movember.com
Together we can change the face of men’s health.
Skip Williams
KingsBridge is a Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity company specializing in Software, Seminars and Consulting. If you are looking for a Microsoft Office integrated recovery planning tool, Phoenix is not only an excellent tool, but the only completely integrated planning tool. Our seminars (online and in-house) are some of the longest running seminars in the recovery business. KingsBridge uses turn-key consulting for those who need the plan done, right the first time. For more information about KingsBridge, checkoutwww.disasterrecovery.com
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: blackberry, business, business continuity, business continuity software, business disaster, Continuity of Operations, COOP, disaster recovery, disaster recovery software, KingsBridge Disaster Recovery, rim
I was having lunch on Friday with a friend who works at RIM (BlackBerry) and he made an interesting comment that I thought captures a lot of what the business world has become. He said, “Everyone expects their email to work all the time. Even if they are a summer student, if their BlackBerry doesn’t work for 5 seconds… they freak out!” I thought this was interesting on a couple levels; first, I realize RIM makes the BlackBerry, but why does every summer student “need” a BlackBerry? And second has everyone’s expectations of systems/services gone up that much?
Let’s sit back and think about the above statement when it comes to our (your) business…Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery planning is based on getting the critical services/systems back online as soon as possible to ensure the business suffers the least impact possible. Increasingly we are seeing email/blackberry as part of this critical systems bucket, are you willing to make getting email back to your summer/intern employees a priority? Or are you going to focus on more important business function? I hope the later…
Understanding what is a critical system, who uses this critical system and how it “really” impacts your business in a must when developing a realistic plan. The ability to triage your workload is the key to success when it comes to actually performing the recovery.
Keep this in mind when you are doing your next exercise:
1. What systems/services will impact my (companies) ability to deliver the product/service we sell for money?
2. What do I (we) need to do to protect that ability
3. How much money (or time) am I willing to commit to that protection?
It sounds simple, but it rarely is, as the internal politics of all business will pull you and your team in directions you really don’t want to go!
How do we avoid this?
Be sure you have a complete Threat Risk Analysis, Business Impact Analysis and finally real numbers to back up why you can’t focus all of your attention to supporting email and blackberry to all the summer interns. Once your senior management looks at the cost in dollars and time, they should understand why you couldn’t have everything backed up in 5 seconds without a budget to match!
KingsBridge is a Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity company specializing in Software, Seminars and Consulting. If you are looking for a Microsoft Office integrated recovery planning tool, Phoenix is not only an excellent tool, but the only completely integrated planning tool. Our seminars (online and in-house) are some of the longest running seminars in the recovery business. KingsBridge uses turn-key consulting for those who need the plan done, right the first time. For more information about KingsBridge, checkoutwww.disasterrecovery.com
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: business, business continuity, business continuity software, business disaster, Continuity of Operations, COOP, disaster, disaster recovery software, H1N1, KingsBridge Disaster Recovery, swine flu
An interesting story went by yesterday in the news and it underlines the importance of Media control in the event of a disaster.
How this relates to Recovery Planning. When we do any Disaster Recovery or Business Continuity planning for our customers we underline the importance of getting the right message out to the customers. If you let the media build the emergency, they will make it seem much worse than it really is, as they have to fill time on their programming and lets face it, sensational news sells!
So, the scenario… On Sunday a passenger train was returning to Ottawa and had a mechanical fire about 40 minutes south of town. The article filed by the reporter, who happened to be on the train, makes the entire evacuation process absolutely terrifying. A couple things to keep in mind when you read the article; first, nobody was injured and second, there hasn’t been any sort of rebuttal from VIA rail (the train company).
Here is the article:http://www.cbc.ca/news/citizenbytes/2009/08/train_trouble_a_passenger_on_a_1.html
How does this impact my business recovery planning?
One of the key pieces of either Disaster Recovery or Business Continuity Planning is minimizing the impact on your customer base (current or future). In this case VIA should have had press releases plastered all over the news feeds about their fast response in having busses and trucks to evacuate people. Instead we hear nothing. Unfortunately, all we take away from this are the passengers had to walk down tracks in the dark while fending off bugs.
I haven’t taken a train for more than 15 years and this story doesn’t make me want to rush out and take one anytime soon! I realize that I might not be the majority, but in the constant market share war for new customers, VIA missed an excellent opportunity to highlight their fast response and possibly gain new customers. I guess I’ll continue to fly!
KingsBridge is a Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity company specializing in Software, Seminars and Consulting. If you are looking for a Microsoft Office integrated recovery planning tool, Phoenix is not only an excellent tool, but the only completely integrated planning tool. Our seminars (online and in-house) are some of the longest running seminars in the recovery business. KingsBridge uses turn-key consulting for those who need the plan done, right the first time. For more information about KingsBridge, checkoutwww.disasterrecovery.com
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: business, business continuity, business continuity software, business disaster, Continuity of Operations, COOP, disaster, disaster preparation, disaster recovery, KingsBridge Disaster Recovery
In May, Google suffered a service outage that led to worldwide Internet slowdowns and left millions with limited or no access to critical business functions like email. The real story, though, is not the outage, but why a company controlling almost two-thirds of the world’s Internet search traffic didn’t have a better disaster plan in place, and how you can learn from their mistakes. We live in interesting times right now… Everyone expects complete 100% “uptime”, but nobody has the budget to support those kinds of expectations. In Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery, there would be contingency plans put in place, but with today’s market it is tough to find the financing to have the redundant systems in place.
The job of a good Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery specialist is to build a plan (both recovery and project) that allows the plan to maximize its effectiveness when there is money and sustain it when there isn’t. Keep reading and we’ll examine how each of these questions are the foundation for your project and can lead you in the right direction.
Finding the Right consultant
It isn’t uncommon to be skeptical of a consultant, that is why we have seen their title change from “Consultant” to Managed Service” over the years. Most people feel that a consultant is simply there to punch the clock and not exactly geared towards results, even though they are being paid a lot of money. How do you find a good one? Read on to learn more about what each project should entail to ensure a good result from your consultant.
Know Your Business
As you work in, manage or own a successful business, you already know what solutions work best for you. Are you an “online” office? Is your entire office paperless? Is your office full of paper and you “need it” to operate. Or is the bulk of your workforce mobile? The answer to each of these requires very different strategies and very different solutions to ensure the best chance for recovery. Your Disaster Recovery or Business Continuity plan should reflect the manner in which your regular business operates.
Keep your Options Open
All projects are impacted by advancements in technology and slowdowns in the economy; Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery are no different. Thus building a flexible recovery solution for you business is key. As with all contracts, avoiding being locked into one long-term contract with only one technology is essential. If you are looking for a solution that is going to grow (or shrink) with your business, make sure your contract allows for flexibility. Any good service provider (software or managed services) should be able to determine a solution that works for you. If you feel they are pushing service on you, consider changing to a vendor neutral provider.
To recap the above paragraphs, let’s outline the major points:
- · We need to do due diligence on our proposed consultants.
- · Also, it is critical to have set deliverables for a set price.
- · Find a solution that works for you! It can be very simple or very complex, but make sure it works for you!
- · Whatever you choose to do is better than nothing, but it must work for you (and your company).
As budgets are at the forefront of everyone’s mind right now, when researching a solution provider, make sure they can offer a solution that works for your budget. There are a lot of providers that will sell you on overkill, but there are also a lot of providers that will give you an excellent solution for less than you are expecting. Find a solution that works for you, they have a good history, they offer a flexible solution and you like them because you might be working with them for a long time!
KingsBridge is a Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity company specializing in Software, Seminars and Consulting. If you are looking for a Microsoft Office integrated recovery planning tool, Phoenix is not only an excellent tool, but the only completely integrated planning tool. Our seminars (online and in-house) are some of the longest running seminars in the recovery business. KingsBridge uses turn-key consulting for those who need the plan done, right the first time. For more information about KingsBridge, checkoutwww.disasterrecovery.com
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: business, business continuity, business continuity software, business disaster, KingsBridge Disaster Recovery, plus 3 networks
With the World Health Organization announcing that H1N1 (Swine Flu) is now a full fledged Pandemic, today would normally be a sad day. Thankfully KingsBridge has an announcement that makes today a lot happier!! As of today, KingsBridge is a part of the www.plus3network.com group of sponsors! We have choosen the Nevada Cancer Institute as our sponsor! So for every mile ride/run we are contributing to cancer research. This has been a few months in the planning, but years in the hearts of KingsBridge employees as most of us have been touched by Cancer. Some of us wear yellow LiveStrong bands and there is even a tattoo to remember those who have been impacted. We highly recommend you check out the Plus 3 Network website for more details on their program!
Join us in the fight against cancer!
KingsBridge is a Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity company specializing in Software, Seminars and Consulting. If you are looking for a Microsoft Office integrated recovery planning tool, Phoenix is not only an excellent tool, but the only completely integrated planning tool. Our seminars (online and in-house) are some of the longest running seminars in the recovery business. KingsBridge uses turn-key consulting for those who need the plan done, right the first time. For more information about KingsBridge, checkoutwww.disasterrecovery.com
Filed under: Knowledge | Tags: business continuity, business continuity software, business disaster, disaster preparation, disaster recovery, disaster recovery software, KingsBridge Disaster Recovery, Phoenix software
Security of Phoenix
Phoenix has been designed as a stand-alone software, consisting of a program and a .phx plan file, which can operate when your system (or network) isn’t operational. It will run equally as effective on a laptop at your hot site as it would on your desktop within your network.
KingsBridge has taken steps to facilitate access to your plan during an emergency. This includes allowing for installs on any type of Windows based computer, and not requiring a password to open Phoenix.
To protect your valuable information, we have double encrypted the .phx plan file and the format of the file is in a proprietary version that only Phoenix can read. Therefore if someone doesn’t have Phoenix installed on their computer, they cannot “break-in” unless they are inside your network, with a copy of Phoenix and have been given permission to read the directory where the plan is housed.
Recommended Network Installation
As mentioned earlier, Phoenix is designed as a stand-alone software consisting of a program and a .phx plan file. Each individual who will be editing the plan must have Phoenix installed on his or her computer, and have access to the .phx plan file. It is recommended that the .phx plan file be saved on a secure network drive. This drive should only be accessible by pre-determined login IDs, based on your network protocol.
There are 2 options to consider when saving the .phx plan to your network:
Option 1: For multiple business units writing to the same Phoenix plan, create a folder on a network drive, and save the .phx plan to that folder. Read/write access to this folder should only be give to members who will be editing the plan. This accomplishes two things; first, it makes one plan that is accessible by everyone authorized and second, with the plan being saved on a network drive it is more secure (including regular backups).
Option 2: For increased security or multiple business units writing to different Phoenix plans, create individual folders on a network drive, with each .phx plan saved in each folder. Read/write access to individual folders should only be give to members who will be editing each individual plan. While this option increases security for each plan, it also creates multiple plans and requires duplicate databases. As with all security features, it is a balance between security and functionality.
KingsBridge is a Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity company specializing in Software, Seminars and Consulting. If you are looking for a Microsoft Office integrated recovery planning tool, Phoenix is not only an excellent tool, but the only completely integrated planning tool. Our seminars (online and in-house) are some of the longest running seminars in the recovery business. KingsBridge uses turn-key consulting for those who need the plan done, right the first time. For more information about KingsBridge, checkout www.disasterrecovery.com
Filed under: Knowledge | Tags: business, business continuity, business disaster, disaster, disaster preparation, disaster recovery, software, swine flu
It happens every year at the same time and with the weather being unpredictable as it is, you would think that we would know how to weather any storm. Just like with hurricanes, our business continuity/disaster recovery plans are susceptible to the storms that might happen in the day-to-day running of our businesses.
Are you watching the forecast?
We all know the importance of planning. We spend countless hours preparing for that long awaited family trip to the beach or trip of your dreams to some exotic destination. When it comes to your business continuity/disaster recovery plan do we need to be as diligent? When you are planning for the next project, proposal, new client meeting, are you asking yourself, will this affect my plan? Are you setting time aside on a regular basis to review and make revisions to your plan? If not, start now!
Are you changing your way to navigate the storm?
Now you are focused and aware of how changes affect your plan, are you making changes to keep your plan up-to-date? Are you looking at ways to simplify your plan? Often, we make changes to our business to take advantage of new technology, are you doing the same for your plan?
Can you survive the unpredicted?
Sometimes it’s not the hurricane that will stop us in our tracks, it can be something simple. Does your plan provide for the basics? What would happen if you went to the office in the morning and you had no power? What happens if the receptionist spills coffee on the switchboard? Can your clients call? Does your plan provide for the basics?
What will it cost you?
Can your business survive a storm that puts you out of your office? What if you lose your client database? Can you afford to be shutdown for 1 day, 3 days or 1 week? Do you know the number associated with even one day of business interruption?
Knowing the cost, makes planning more realistic. In our current economy can you afford to be down at all? Your plan becomes your road map and insurance policy to making sure your business with survive the next “hurricane”.
