Recovery roundup

Many of the UK’s main business continuity facilities suppliers were called upon on by London clients on 7th July. The following company statements give an overview of what took place:

SUNGARD AVAILABILITY SERVICES UK
As of midday on Monday 11th July, we had received a total of 28 invocation calls and 84 alerts (stand-by requests) as a direct result of the London bombings. Most of these were workplace based implications involving ‘denial of access’ whereby customer personnel were unable to enter or exit their premises owing to police cordons and therefore we activated the customer’s systems at one of our sites to allow their personnel to potentially relocate to a SunGard facility. Only a small number of customers brought significant number of users to a SunGard facility during the period because most personnel were able to gain access to their premises shortly after the incidents. All the requirements of all invoking customers were met using our London area facilities.

This was made possible by the unrivalled scale of SunGard’s facilities: 20 in the UK, including six locations in central London.

Despite the high number of alerts in the immediate aftermath of the bombings, the number of customers directly affected was much fewer than this due to the particular nature and geographic focus of the incidents. As police and security forces further assessed the risk potential throughout the day, SunGard supported customers to re-evaluate their invocation positions until they could comfortably take a ‘stand down’ position as security cordons were lifted. As of Thursday 14th July only a single customer remained invoked.

SunGard UK was able to deal fully with the unprecedented customer demand of the largest single UK incident to date. SunGard continues to be fully staffed to respond to all customer inquiries with its centres around the UK. In addition, our Crisis Management Center in Philadelphia and additional sites in the US remain on standby.

ICM COMPUTER GROUP
As a result of the incidents in London on 7th July, ICM immediately announced ‘Major Incident’ status across our three London Centres. This included the formation of a Major Incident management team with individuals with pre-defined roles and responsibilities covering co-ordination, on-site management and customer communication.

During the course of the day ICM subsequently managed nine client standby’s affecting users of our Wapping, Sevenoaks and Loudwater business continuity centres. Users were spread across London including areas not directly affected by the incidents- such as Canary Wharf, which suffered a security ‘lock down’. All users could be accommodated in their primary site and in their own secure suites.

Furthermore all centres remained fully operational, were appropriately manned to a high state of readiness and continued to have unencumbered local access. Additional support staff from our Bristol, Newmarket and Midlands based Centres were also on standby if required.

Throughout the course of the morning of 8th July, the nine client Standby’s gradually reduced as clients stood us down and thankfully started the process of trying to normalise their business. Whilst a number of clients’ technical staff attended site to ready dedicated systems and access battle boxes, no users invoked into the centres.

We continued to manage four Standby scenarios throughout Friday and the weekend maintaining our Major Incident Response levels. When no further incidents or standbys/invocations were received by Friday evening, we stood down the Major Incident team WEF and returned to our standard level of readiness and operational support. Normal testing regimes recommenced on Monday 11th July.

ICM would like to take this opportunity to share our admiration for the emergency services and Corporation of London for the fantastic response and management of the incidents. Their preparation, rehearsals and professionalism undoubtedly saved lives and the calmness that existed amongst those working in London no doubt emanated from the manner in which the incident was handled and communicated.

The Corporation in particular have been a major exponent of business continuity, risk and crisis management and showed, in the full glare of the world, the importance of these disciplines and the benefit of using rehearsals to get them right.

Of course there will be many lessons learned, in every respect, from this experience. If we are to keep ahead of the terrorists and ensure that each event has a reducing impact in human and economic terms, then it is important that these lessons are heeded.

Our thoughts are with all those affected by these shocking acts.

STROHL SYSTEMS
Strohl Systems has been actively providing assistance to many customers in the UK and elsewhere in the wake of the terrorist bombings in London.

NotiFind, Strohl's emergency notification system, sent almost 1,400 successful messages for companies with employees in the city. In addition, the interactive system has also sent 700 successful messages in support of the US decision to change its security code for public transportation systems. In spite of jammed cell networks in the UK, NotiFind was still able to contact people via landline, WAP phone, e-mail, fax, PDA, SMS, and BlackBerry.

"Strohl Systems would like to extend our deepest sympathies to those affected by the terrorist attacks in London," said Brian Turley, president of Strohl Systems. "We are committed to helping organisations prevail over such tragedies."

NDR
Following terrorist attacks in London on Thursday 7th July, 13 of NDR’s London based customers placed their business continuity facilities on standby.

Being aware of the attacks and the potential serious threat to customers’ businesses, NDR implemented its business continuity plan, to co-ordinate operations and the NDR technical support team. NDR’s London business recovery centre in Old Street was put on alert when at 10.15am the first customer call came in. The escalating events resulted in 13 customer calls to place recovery services on standby.

One mobile unit was diverted into London to support the Old Street centre. Two mobile units were diverted to the NDR Uxbridge business recovery centre and the centre and technical support staff were put on standby. Both the NDR Birmingham and Bristol recovery centres and further mobile units were also made situation ready. NDR’s partnership with NetSupport Powerweb also offered standby of a recovery centre facility in Peterborough with over 200 recovery positions if required.

Friday’s actions saw the majority of customers who were on standby requesting to be kept at that status as a precaution. One customer invoked the service on Friday morning as they could not gain access to their building due to police sealing off the entrance as a crime scene. Just prior to their relocating to NDR’s Old Street recovery centre they were given access to their offices by the emergency services. Following that, a customer within the insurance sector invoked the service, again due to restricted access to one of their offices. NDR were called upon to deliver 30 desktop PC’s to one of their other offices in East London for them to continue operation as quickly as possible. The invocations were carried out successfully.

NDR’s team were on constant alert over this period and successfully handled the 13 standbys and resulting invocation.

•Date: 15th July 2005 • Region: UK • Type: Article •Topic: Recovery facilities
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