Sten Vesterli's Blog

Making IT Live up to its Promise

Tag: prepared

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

Denmark is Dangerously Unprepared – Are You?

IT Leadership, Technology That Fits, , , ,

Denmark is not prepared for IT disasters and attacks. The state auditors have chosen 13 out of the approx. 4,200 public IT systems and looked at their recovery plans and procedures. A few were fairly well prepared, most were not, and one system was completely unprepared for anything to go wrong.

None of the recovery plans were adequately tested, and five systems had not tested their recovery plan at all in the last three years. For outsourced systems, half of the contracts did not require testing the recovery plan (!).

But at least the Danish state has an office that examines these things and issues a report. Who is responsible for evaluating the disaster recovery plans for critical systems in your organization? You cannot leave that to the individual system owners.