A Guide to Departmental Recovery Planning

Before preparing your departmental plan, it's important that you refer to the disaster plan for The Medical Center. The Institutional plan provides essential information that addresses departmental responsibilities in the event of a disaster and will help you assess your department's specific needs. Therefore, any guidelines developed by the department should compliment those of the Medical Center plan and should not be intended to serve as a substitute.

Disaster Recovery Planning….We All Have To Do It

Test yourself

Whether you are responsible for an academic office, clinic, lab, or a PC on your desk, can you answer Yes to the following common recovery planning questions?

• Can I get the right people together quickly to respond to a departmental emergency?
• If I had to resume operations someplace else, would I have the necessary data and records available to be able to do it?
• Do I have a place to go? If so, do I know what to do when I get there?
• Do I know what equipment and other resources I need, and where to get them in a hurry?

If you can answer yes to all of these questions and have documented all the information, congratulations! You already have your disaster recovery plan in place. Reviewing and updating it once a year will help ensure your chances of recovery.

In any case, recovery planning is necessary. It's critical to continuity of operations after a disaster.

WHO NEEDS TO KNOW?

Inform the right people

• Whether your department is concentrated in one area or in various locations across campus, to recover effectively from a disaster, you must be able to reach key people wherever they are, either at work or at home.

Make sure everyone knows whom to call

• Develop a list of all departmental employees who need to be called in an emergency. Include management who must make on the spot decisions and any others who have specific knowledge or responsibilities.
• List their names, addresses, home and office numbers, e-mail addresses and pagers, if they have them.
• Include this information in the emergency notification list you distribute.

Get on the Personnel Notification list

• Particularly on nights and weekends, all departments should be notified of any emergency that affects their area. While there are limits to the number of calls the switchboard can reasonably be expected to make in a campus-wide situation, you can work with them to ensure you are informed of a problem affecting your department or other areas you occupy.
  
  
  

WITHOUT DATA, WHAT'S LEFT TO RECOVER?

Back up data off-site!

You can keep back-up data on a variety of media, including

• Paper
• Floppy disk
• Magnetic tape cartridges
• A removable hard drive
• A local file server

A good backup plan uses a combination of these methods.

Copying critical documents to floppy disks protects these documents in case you accidentally damage or erase the ones on your computer.

But copies on a floppy won't help in a disaster unless you've taken the floppy out of the building with you. And even then the floppy might get damaged or lost.

IN AN EMERGENCY WHERE WILL YOU GO?

Know your options

Depending on the type of disaster, you may find that you cannot occupy your normal facilities due to damage, exposure to hazardous materials or other problems.

The disaster plan for The Medical Center has established treatment and operation areas throughout the facility. Depending on the severity and anticipated duration of the situation, you may also be able to do one of the following:

• Work from home, particularly if you and your staff have remote access capabilities.
• Double up with another area that is unaffected, possibly after their normal working hours.
• Arrange for temporary space in conference rooms, classrooms, lounges or other facilities.

Facilities Planning may be able to assist the department in finding suitable facilities for longer outages. To resume operations during this period you will probably have to establish semi permanent quarters along with any other departments that were affected. Make a list of your space requirements. It will help Facilities Planning meet your request.

Use voice mail to redirect callers or take messages during the emergency. Contact Telecommunications for more information.

WHAT DO YOU NEED TO DO?

Take inventory

Some of the equipment that you will need to get back to work is fairly standard and generally available. It isn't too difficult to get new computers, copiers and office equipment. However, equipment related to your department's operational core may be more difficult to obtain.

Risk and Insurance Management can answer your questions on insurance coverage for the property and equipment in your custody. Have an up to date inventory of the equipment in your office, and make sure you keep a copy off site! It will help to expedite recovery. Property Control should have records of all capitalized equipment. The department should also maintain a current expendable equipment inventory consisting of items below the capitalization threshold.

• Make sure you have the model numbers, versions, special features and other information about your equipment. Your off-site programs and data may need a particular model or release to operate correctly.
• Keep an up-to-date software inventory off-site.
• If you have one-of-a-kind equipment-for instance, something created for a specific project-work with the people who use the equipment to consider the various options you have in case of its loss or unavailability.

In addition to equipment, the department should inventory the critical services they receive from other departments and external organizations to determine the impact of the loss of these services during a disaster.

In summary, the amount of detail and complexity of information needed in a departmental plan is dependent on the type of operations to be restored and the interrelationships with other departments and external organizations. Consequently, it is unlikely that any two departmental plans will be the same. Some critical services may be fairly easy to restore, while others may be difficult. These services may require written agreements with outside organizations, such as special equipment leases, or arrangements for temporary facilities. Other services may be available from unaffected departments within The Medical Center. Therefore, it is important that when exploring alternative courses of action, the department consider options using the best available cost-effective measures. An example would be the substantial cost of acquiring a new piece of equipment versus the possibility of repairing the damaged one. Also, maintaining a "big picture" approach will help the department maintain its focus when sifting through its options and promote development of a comprehensive plan.