Every business and government agency needs to manage its Technology Infrastructure and critical assets through proper documentation and controlled tracking to ensure continuous operation under any circumstance. How well an organization deploys and maintains their critical assets and infrastructure will be measured not only by the level of operational readiness, but also by its ability to react to adversity.
In recent years most organizations have invested a significant amount of time, money and resources into disaster recovery plans that now sit on a shelf in a three ring binder. In many instances, these plans are outdated and are only as accurate as the latest disaster recovery plan revision and/or audit.
As part of Planet Associates’ Critical Infrastructure Information Management (CIIM) strategy, Planet IRM provides you with the capabilities to document and manage your critical infrastructure and associated assets not only as they exist, but as they change to meet organizational objectives. Planet IRM’s intelligent visualization engine provides a detailed visual depiction of exactly where critical assets are located, how they are connected, how services are routed and what business functions the underlying infrastructure supports. Today, a significant portion of Critical Infrastructure Information (CII) is maintained locally as disparate islands of data and cannot be accessed or utilized in times of crisis. By consolidating CII data in a centralized, easy to use visual data repository, it allows users to access critical information in a matter of seconds rather than hours while also increasing data accuracy. With Planet IRM, users can now perform:
Risk Assessments/Analysis: Planet IRM provides multiple customizable views illustrating physical separation of services, network redundancy and areas of potential vulnerability. It will also enable users to understand which business services would be affected by potential disasters, equipment failures, cut pathways, etc.
Disaster Simulation Exercises: “What if” scenario-based planning, such as: What if a flood destroyed a first floor data center? What if a backhoe severed a pathway carrying mission critical services? Planet IRM will provide all the necessary disaster recovery reports for resumption, aid in determining service re-routes, provide business impact analysis and more to enable your organization to resume business operations.
Alternate Site Design and Work Area Management: As organizations are increasingly choosing to run remote disaster recovery sites (hot/cold), Planet IRM will aid in managing the transition between sites, tracking new infrastructure capacities and even manage all asset to user assignments.
In the event of a disaster, Planet IRM is crucial for:
Crisis Management: Planet IRM’s capability for wide distribution allows users to safely view and manage the affected physical Critical Infrastructure from remote locations. Business Impact Assessments can be performed and first responder teams can use Planet IRM as a guide for their critical infrastructure recovery strategy. Priorities can be assigned to those most time sensitive systems/services while providing technicians key information about alternate service routes and lines. Planet IRM can also be used to produce all the necessary reports for damage assessment/analysis, business technology recovery and even user workstation recovery.
Site Recovery: A critical piece to any disaster recovery plan is identifying the necessary replacement assets for procurement and designing the new technology infrastructure. Within Planet IRM, users can not only proactively design and create any number of work orders from proposed designs, but also save themselves against potential “what if “scenarios in the case of a fire, flood, bomb or any number of crisis incidents. All material estimates and associated costs can be generated; work orders can be automatically created and distributed and a record of each transaction (installation, move, add or change) will be stored in a tamper-proof audit trail providing accountability and traceability.
Compliance Reporting: Ensuring compliance with government and industry regulations is a critical component to maintaining limited liability and reduces the likelihood of financial penalties and fees. Planet IRM can enable your organization to easily generate management compliance reports for regulations including, but not limited to, Continuity of Operations Planning (COOP), Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP – PDD63) National Futures Association Rule 2-38 and others on the fly.