Are You Sure Your Backup System Works?

Why did all the trains in Denmark stop on Saturday? Russian hackers may or may not have been involved, but Danish incompetence was.

The Danish State Railways (DSB) has digitized all the paper that a train driver used to carry. That’s temporary speed restrictions, track works, and deviations from the standard schedule. They have also outsourced their digital solution to an amateurish vendor, and neither the vendor nor DSB had a backup solution. So when the vendor shut down the system due to an unspecified “security issue,” the trains stood still.

I’ve boarded a Delta Airlines flight with a hand-written boarding card on a scrap of paper. A professional organization continues to run, though slower, without its computers. An unprofessional organization like DSB is paralyzed. Are you like Delta Airlines or like the Danish State Railways?