August 2, 2004 (Computerworld) --
Asiff Hirji, CIO at Ameritrade Holding Corp., said his business continuity plan for the company's Jersey City, N.J., data center worked flawlessly when the lights went out in much of the Northeast last August. Well, almost flawlessly. Ameritrade had 36 hours' worth of diesel fuel in its backup generators, and the main power grid wasn't fully restored for two days. Ameritrade has since increased the amount of diesel fuel it keeps on hand, and Hirji has made other changes in response to the blackout. "We learned a bunch of things because in every plan, no matter how good, there is some little detail you forgot," he said last week as the one-year anniversary of the outage approached. The blackout, which struck last Aug. 14 and left more than 50 million people without power for days, has given many IT managers food for thought over the past year. In interviews last week, a half-dozen IT executives said they have modified their business continuity plans in the wake of the blackout, investing in projects such as reinforcing their networks and increasing the amount of testing they do. Drew Hiltz, deputy CIO at CDC Ixis North America Inc., said the New York-based asset management company experienced a communications meltdown for two days as a result of the blackout. In June, CDC Ixis completed a blackout-driven deployment of a Sonet ring that connects multiple offices in New York and New Jersey at OC-48 port speeds. "As a result of the blackout, the central office had significant problems," Hiltz said. "Their equipment fried." The company is using the Sonet ring not only for data links but also for voice communications, which Hiltz said has helped increase communications resiliency. In addition, the company's IT staffers have worked with Verizon Communications Inc. to reposition circuits so they can support different offices around Manhattan. Hiltz wouldn't say how much the Sonet ring cost to install. It's more expensive than the T3 lines that CDC Ixis had before the blackout but less costly based on the amount spent per megabit of bandwidth, according to Hiltz. And officials felt they had no choice. "Resilience is something we couldn't ignore anymore," he said.
Bill Moore, telecommunications manager at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, said all of the museum's IT and building operations systems went down during the blackout. At the time, the museum was undergoing a major renovation and expansion, so IT staffers asked Verizon to install two points of presence for redundancy. They also added the museum's data and telecommunications center to its main backup generator. Moore said that before the blackout, the museum had only battery-powered
"Welcome to a special IT Blogwatch EXTRA: as Richi Jennings watches bloggers' reactions to the Russian hackers who claim to..."
Read more...
"As if taxpayers needed another reason to scorn the IRS. I read yesterday that the inspector general review of several..."
Read more... Read more Security posts or See all Blogs
One positive development stemming from the collapse of Wall Street may be a boost in interest in computer science and IT careers among students who were previously interested in financial services jobs.
Long Tail Supplier Collaboration - What's In It For You?
Long Tail Supplier Collaboration - What's In It For You? Download this webcast, free, compliments of Sterling Commerce Go to the webcast
Quick Sizing Guide for SAS Grid Running on HP BladeSystems and EVA Storage
Download this white paper today! (Source: HP) Designed for CIOs, IT managers, data center managers and grid computing architects seeking to improve performance, SAS Grid Computing on the HP BladeSystem c-Class helps accelerate growth and mitigate risks with a simplified, consolidated infrastructure that's agile enough to efficiently handle change. SAS Grid Manager on HP BladeSystem can lower costs through automation, virtualization and improved IT efficiency. Download this white paper
Virtual Reality
Download this Computerworld briefing, a $49.95 value free, compliments of Riverbed Technologies. (Source: Computerworld) Is your organization facing the struggles of ineffective capacity utilization, growing data volumes, labor intensive storage management, and a need for better disaster recovery?
The data center is real, but storage is turning virtual at many organizations that need to manage these exploding storage needs. Learn how your organization can benefit from storage virtualization in this new Computerworld Report, available free for a limited time, compliments of Riverbed.
Go Green with Webroot® Perimeter Security SaaS! Webroot Perimeter Security SaaS is a powerful alternative to obsolete on-premise hardware based security solutions. SaaS allows businesses to obtain flexible protection through an expert security provider, solving the problems caused by software, hardware and appliance solutions. Benefits include easier manageability, better protection and guaranteed performance –all at a lower cost. Register for your free copy of the "Why Security SaaS Makes Sense" whitepaper and Go Green with Webroot! Download this white paper now!
Forrester Analyst Report: X86 Server Virtualization For High Availability and Disaster Recovery
According to a recent Forrester study, 49% of enterprises surveyed that are implementing or interested in x86 server virtualization. In particular, x86 server virtualization can improve the availability of business-critical systems that are important to the business but not critical enough to warrant the investment in expensive and complex resiliency technologies like fault-tolerant hardware or clustering.
Yankee Group. "Disaster Strikes! Is Your Business Ready? Disaster Preparedness for Mid-Sized Firms"
Mid-sized businesses have long struggled to protect their IT systems. Many firms are inadequately protected and mistakenly think that a disaster is rare and won't happen to them anytime soon. This custom Yankee Group Report studies the newest technology trends, such as virtualization and storage replication, which make powerful DR solutions attainable and affordable even for mid-sized businesses.
VMware White Paper: Transforming Disaster Recovery - VMware Infrastructure for rapid, reliable and cost-effective Disaster Recovery
VMware Infrastructure transforms disaster recovery by providing you fast, reliable and cost-effective disaster recovery. Why suffer from the slow, expensive and unreliable problems associated with traditional disaster recovery solution? VMware makes disaster recovery affordable through consolidation savings and re-use of existing servers for your disaster recovery site. Experience the speed of virtualization!
See your link here
Subscribe to
Computerworld 
or
Other Disaster Recovery Stories
Long Tail Supplier Collaboration - What's In It For You? 
Download this white paper today!
Download this Computerworld briefing, a $49.95 value free, compliments of Riverbed Technologies. 
Read up on the latest ideas and technologies from companies that sell hardware, software and services. 
Webroot Perimeter Security SaaS is a powerful alternative to obsolete on-premise hardware based security solutions. SaaS allows businesses to obtain flexible protection through an expert security provider, solving the problems caused by software, hardware and appliance solutions. Benefits include easier manageability, better protection and guaranteed performance –all at a lower cost. Register for your free copy of the "Why Security SaaS Makes Sense" whitepaper and Go Green with Webroot! 
Forrester Analyst Report: X86 Server Virtualization For High Availability and Disaster Recovery
Yankee Group. "Disaster Strikes! Is Your Business Ready? Disaster Preparedness for Mid-Sized Firms"
VMware White Paper: Transforming Disaster Recovery - VMware Infrastructure for rapid, reliable and cost-effective Disaster Recovery