Sten Vesterli's Blog

Making IT Live up to its Promise

Tag: Disaster recovery

Be Prepared for Every Eventuality

IT Leadership, , ,

My latest favorite German word: Bargeldnotversorgung. It means “emergency supplying of cash.” The careful Germans are preparing for the worst-case scenario of widespread blackouts. Part of their plan is to make sure that everybody has an adequate supply of little colored pieces of paper, also known as “cash.”

Meanwhile, in Denmark, authorities, and shops are merrily careening towards a cashless society that will collapse as soon as the power goes out.

There are many things that can go wrong, and a well-run organization is prepared for all of them. In cases of risk management, be like Germany, not like Denmark

Good Intentions are not Enough

IT Leadership, Technology That Fits, , , ,

“We have the ambition to test disaster recovery twice a year.” That’s not something anybody in a professional IT organization would say, is it? Ambition? I have the ambition to create a spam- and hate-speech-free Twitter alternative powered by unicorns and rainbows, but unless I act on my ambition, nothing will happen.

Nevertheless, critical Danish infrastructure was operated on that principle. The common login system that everything from banks to tax authorities to municipalities uses is operated by a company called Nets. They apparently got to write their contract with the state themselves because it contains the ridiculous “ambition” instead of an actual requirement.

They did run a test on May 28, 2020. They did not run a test in November 2020, as was their ambition. Nor in May or November 2021. Not even in May 2022 did they test it. So when they crashed the system in June 2022 due to undocumented changes and other unprofessional shenanigans, the disaster recovery unsurprisingly failed.

Please tell everyone this story. When you are done laughing at the incompetence of central Danish authorities and their vendors, make sure you are testing your own disaster recovery…