1. Knowing your business
…even when disaster strikes
BC&RS at ABK

2. Agenda
• Introduction
• Why ? - goals
• Planned how ? - strategy
• Real Life how ? - evolution
• The fun part: challenges !
• Future
• Conclusion
• Questions?

3. Disclaimer
• The views and opinions expressed in this
presentation are my own and are not
necessarily those of my current, future or
past employer. Therefore they do not hold
any “best practice” or binding “advise”.
• My remarks are tips or hints, food for
thought.

4. Introduction

5. About me
• Bart Van der Avort
• Network administrator @ ABK bank
• Maintenance of BCP (ICT side)
• Since 1998
Contactinfo
E-mail: bart.vanderavort@abk.be
Twitter: @hecticking
linkedin

6. ABK
• Antwerps Beroepskrediet c.v.b.a
• 15 branches or affiliates
• SMB, self-employed
• More info: http://www.abk.be

7. BC & RS @ABK

8. Why BC&RS ?
(Not only because we must…)

9. External disaster
What if this ...

10. ... turns into this?

11. We can go “BOOM” too ...

12. And still....
the business must go on

13. Why IBM?
• Long term relationship
• “Have you ever thought about BC ?”
• 2005: studied alternatives
• IBM met ABK’s requirements
• security, service, flexibility
• scale

14. BC Strategy

15. Key elements
• Infrastructure & services
• IBM & ABK owned hardware
• People & Processes
• BCP: Business continuïty plan
• Education, awareness
• Field tests
• Updates & Reports to board of directors

16. BC&RS evolution
• 1998: Backup based, cold setup
• Tapes, images
• Identical Hardware @BCRS site
• ca. 2005: hot setup
• Tapes, images, data restore only
• Today: online
• Data Mirroring, storage replication
• Virtualisation

17. Simplified overview

18. Challenges
• Size
• == main cause for challenges
• concentration of duties => replacements?
• Size does not matter ! (no proportionality)
• Nature of business
• Critical infrastructure
• Regulatory compliance (circulaire PPB 2005/2 -
see: http://www.nbb.be)

19. Challenges (contd.)
• Time
• 1998: 1 test == 4 to 5 days
• 2011: 1 test == 4 to 5 hours
• Improved continuity =?= budget friendly
• Connectivity costs
• SLA’s
• Process priorities
• BC awareness in new projects

20. Future
• Progressive digitizing of information ?
• Small steps
• Further virtualisation
• Work from home ?
• ...

21. Conclusion
• You need it, even if you think you do not
• How much of it you need? Up to you ...
• Continuing process
• It’s personal, no one size fits all
• involve the whole business

22. Questions?