Business Information Systems - Business Continuity and Disaster recovery

Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery

Hot Remote Back-up Center for SWIFT Alliance environments

The Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery solution includes the FMA module, a product that provides the capability for real time, asynchronous mirroring of financial messages, from one geographic site to another.

The Backup Center should be situated in a different geographical site then the primary site (especially if the primary site is situated in a geographical area with a history of earthquakes, flooding or other disasters). We recommend for important players on the market to build two backup centers, at least one in a different area. Hardware, software and telecommunications facilities of the Hot Backup Centers should be identical to the ones in the primary site.

FMA transmits transactions in real time from the primary platform to the secondary platform. Because only transactions are transmitted and not database replicas, the system is efficient from the communications costs point of view.

Besides the basic transaction mirroring engine, FMA offers:

a monitoring subsystem (from both business and technical perspective)
a procedure & event management subsystem providing:
working procedures management (create, update & disseminate)
BC&DR (business continuity and disaster recovery) support
planned events support
eLearning support

In case of an unexpected event, the backup platform is immediately available and ready to run the financial transactions of the institution.

Such a strategy makes the IT system resilient. It bends but it doesn’t break and recovers quickly the initial shape.

Improvement of communications networks and lower IT equipment costs make this strategy available also for small / medium size financial institutions.

Development & maintenance of the BCDR Plan & Crisis Management

Esfera improves the business management by enabling the planning, execution, control and flexible correction of the business processes and resources at department level. Esfera provides guidance and control in performing both business as usual and exception processes, embedding also crisis management and business continuity planning.

The BCDR (Business Continuity and Disaster recovery) plan is easy to use in crisis situations, accessible, easy to test, maintain and disseminate. It is accessible through web browsers over the network.
Esfera provides tools for maintaining and testing a live BC & DR plan and for training the staff to react correctly in atypical situations.
The plan allows the Crisis Management Team to recover systems from disaster in the shortest time and with low costs.

When disaster strikes, ESFERA Virtual Center for Crisis Monitoring can make the difference!

Esfera includes a generic plan and generic procedures, tools to adapt, maintain and test the BC & DRS Plan and software and a blueprint for Virtual Crisis Management Center.

The generic BC & DRS Plan includes:

The Crisis Management Plan: what should an organization do in a crisis situation? This is maybe the most important plan as the evolution of events depends also on the first reaction
The Operational Recovery and Disaster Recovery plan which includes the activities the staff has to perform in order to recover operations as soon as possible, using the remote hot backup center
Testing scenarios
Procedures for software, hardware and telecommunications incidents

Best Practices & Operational Risk management

Banal incidents or planned events, if badly managed, can sometimes lead to disasters and incur considerable loss. Human factor especially must not be treated lightly. Staff should be trained and should have rapid access to updated politics, procedures, manuals, work instructions and checklists.
Esfera offers a simple to use, unsophisticated system to capture, organize and disseminate the operational procedures within an organization.
Esfera also provides managers with efficient tools to monitor day to day activities, planned events and document flow.
A combination of a knowledge management system and a collaborative platform can change dramatically the way your business is conducted.