Business continuity briefs:
19th August 2008

'Business continuity briefs' provides a summary of new product and services press releases and other useful resources published in the last 24 hours.

President declares major disaster for Vermont and New Mexico
FEMA has announced that federal disaster aid has been made available for:

Vermont : to supplement state and local recovery efforts in the area struck by severe storms, a tornado, and flooding on July 18, 2008.
http://www.fema.gov/news/event.fema?id=10409

New Mexico : to supplement state and local recovery efforts in the area struck by severe storms and flooding beginning on July 26, 2008, and continuing.
http://www.fema.gov/news/event.fema?id=10408

Yosemite Backup 8.7
Yosemite Technologies has announced that it has added full support for Microsoft Vista and Windows Server 2008 operating systems with the immediate release of Yosemite Backup 8.7. This latest version of Yosemite's popular server backup solution extends its ability to protect virtual environments to now include Microsoft Windows Hyper-V, in addition to existing support for VMware, delivering a simple and reliable solution to customers who use virtual machines. Also featured in Yosemite Backup 8.7 is updated bare-metal disaster recovery utilizing the latest version of Windows PE (WinPE 2.1) for Vista and Windows Server 2008. This will allow for recovery to dissimilar hardware and set the stage for further BMDR functionality in future versions of the product. www.yosemitetech.com

Royal visitor gets emergency preparedness master-class
HRH, The Duke of York, recently spent four hours with Sembcorp at the Wilton International site on Teesside during a brief trip to the northeast of England. The Prince showed a special interest in the Sembcorp Protection Group, which is one of Europe’s leading emergency response providers, responsible for safeguarding £14 billion worth of high-hazard industrial assets. During the visit he observed an exercise that tested one of the company’s credible scenarios under the COMAH regulations, and took the opportunity to talk with members of the Protection Group team who were leading the communication processes, managing the technical firefighting and managing the incident.

NFPA 110: Standard for Emergency and Standby Power Systems to be updated
During 2009, NFPA will conduct a full revision of NFPA 110: Standard for Emergency and Standby Power Systems. The current version was written in 2005.

Current environmental stories with business continuity implications:

FEMA daily SITREP

World weather impacts

Tropical Storm Fay

Sudan floods

•Date: 19th August 2008• Region: Various