NYS Forum Business Continuity Committee Meeting
(http://www.nysforum.org/committees/businesscontinuity/)

Date: Held 9/10/2008 @ 2:00 PM Keane Office
From: Tom Luther, Chris Lloyd and Mark Spreitzer

Discussion Topic

Attendance

Attendants, and the agencies or organizations they represent:
State Education Dept - Ken Mason, Dick Melita
Tax & Finance - Shelly Brosen
DMV - Joanne Lonzak, Annette Roy, Ed Wade, Adam Gigandet
OSC - Tom Luther, Chad Erickson
Keane - Chris Lloyd
State Police - Frank Wicks
Insurance Dept - Nikki Brate
CGI - Mark Spreitzer (via phone), Jim Hewitt
New York State Forum - Greg Benson

Table go-around, with updates on BC-related activities

  • Tom Luther said that Greg Brunelle from SEMO got word the previous night that a proposed Executive Order about COOP planning in State agencies is awaiting final approval. If approved is current form, NYS Agencies would be directed to appoint a person as a point of contact and to develop a COOP by a yet to be determined date in 2009. The COOP would be submitted to SEMO, reviewed by them and then must be signed off - annually.
  • Tom shared a draft final version of a Welcome Letter the co-chairs have developed to introduce new committee members to the Forum, the BC Committee etc. The Co-chairs plan to send a copy of the Welcome Letter to all current contacts on the listserv.
  • Also, the State's Continuity of Government Plan is under development. It broadly outlines how government will operate - including giving prioritization of services.
  • Greg Benson from the NYSF encouraged BC Committee members to attend the NYSF annual meeting on Friday, 9/12.
  • Ken Mason from NYSED was attending his first BC Committee meeting. He is the Assistant Dir. of IT and is on their COOP team. He reported NYSED is leasing rack space from a contractor; the "zero tier" allows for replication of directories and replication of email.
  • Shelly Brosen from DTF said State budget cuts have impacted their ability to attend a test of their disaster recovery agreement with a contractor, so alternatives are now being considered.
  • Joanne Lonzak from DTF (BC focus) reported they are now at work on developing a tabletop exercise.
  • Frank Wicks from NYS Police said his agency has many people working on BC, and reported they've made good progress in a short amount of time. He said NYSP and SEMO are making DR use of a NYSP facility downstate. He also said they've planned a DR test in October.
  • Mark Spreitzer from CGI provided some background on best practices for the physical distance between production sites and DR recovery sites. He said a rule of thumb is they should be "regionally separated," be at least 25 miles apart, or be a four-hour drive from one another. He said best practices call for DR sites to have two of the aforementioned three characteristics.

Creating a directory of the DR strategies/relocation plans for the agencies of BC Committee members

  • Although there was support for information sharing and networking, concerns were also expressed about sharing specific information about the locations of their agencies' alternate sites for fear this information would become public.
  • Ken Mason mentioned a document that listed all companies that provide Web hosting services - and wondered if we could do the same for alternative DR sites.
  • Participants thought we should ask SEMO if they can help agencies understand the DR strategies of what other parts of government are doing - which might help them in their own consideration of how to plan for DR.
  • Greg Benson said templates - specific ones or even the COOP template - may be of use in helping members of the BC Committee gather information for use in their own DR activities.
  • No consensus was reached on assembling a directory which needs further discussion.

Other matters

  • Mark Spreitzer from CGI mentioned an sharing agency's "exercise handbook," which would generally include an agenda and information about an agency's exercises.
  • NOREX (an IT information sharing service with an extensive document library): members wanted to know if we could share documents from their document repository, or if all Agencies must be members in order to accommodate such a request.
  • There was discussion and support for scheduling BC Committee meetings on a standard schedule (for example, the third Wed. of the month).
  • The group discussed potential new initiatives and agenda items for upcoming meetings and will continue to solicit input from others.

Action Items

Action Item
It was felt that the BC Committee should work to expand its membership.
Owner
Committee Members
Due Date
Pending
 
Action Item
Also, the BC Committee (and other NYSF committees, for that matter) should work to better market themselves.
Owner
Co-chairs, others
Due Date
Pending
 

Next Meeting: The next meeting is planned for Wednesday October 15 at the Keane Office from 2 to 4:00. The agenda will be announced in advance.

Additional Documents of Reference