Can You Hear Me Now? Communicating During Emergencies

August 20, 2014

Thank you for being here today

Presenter:

Paul C. Wittekind Director of Information Technology Services Porzio, Bromberg & Newman, PC

August 20, 2014

Thank you for being here today

Presenter:

Joe Davis Applications Manager McCarter & English, LLP

August 20, 2014

Unified Communications Availability

Presenter:

Greg Syer VP Business Development Hosted Services NWN Corporation

Unified Communication Solutions

August 20, 2014

Unified Communications Availability

Presenter:

Jerrod A. Kogut Sr. Sales Engineer E-mail Management and AlertFind Services Dell Software

AlertFind Enterprise Notification

McCarter & English

• 8 offices from Boston to DC with headquarters in Newark, New Jersey

• 420 Attorneys / 850 employees • 32-person IT group • Firm-provided and BYO devices

WHO WE ARE

Porzio

• Northern New Jersey and New York City – 5 offices

• 95 attorneys / 250 employees

• 5.5-person IT department

• Firm-provided and BYO devices

• Power

• Physical Access

• IT and Other Key Personnel

• Availability for Work

• Personal Situations

• Mobile Communications Infrastructure

• Data Center Infrastructure

HOW DID SANDY AFFECT US?

.

• E-mail

• Smartphone messaging

• Voice messaging

WHERE WERE WE IN 2012?

COMMUNICATIONS AND OTHER EMERGENCY FAILOVER SYSTEMS

GENERAL AND NON-COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS

• Power

• Data center infrastructure

• Enterprise content / essential work product

• Power

• Data center infrastructure

• Enterprise content / essential work product

• E-mail

• Smartphone messaging

• Voice messaging

WHERE ARE WE IN AUGUST 2014?

COMMUNICATIONS AND OTHER EMERGENCY FAILOVER SYSTEMS

GENERAL AND NON-COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS

HOW DID WE ACTUALLY

COMMUNICATE?

WHAT DID WE NOT ANTICIPATE?

SOLUTIONS PROVIDERS

AlertFind Enterprise Notification

Collaboration Across Your Business

Mobile Worker Account Manager

Information Worker Financial Analyst

Contact Center Contact Center Agent

Deskless Worker Factory Supervisor

Executive VP of Marketing

Customers Partners Suppliers

Collaboration Re quirements

Intelligent Contact Routing

Virtual Meetings

IP COMMUNICATIONS

Virtual Teams with Click to Call

Intercompany Supplier Collaboration

High Fidelity On- Premises Conferencing

Streamlined Workflows

MOBILE APPLICATIONS

Office Communications on the Go

CUSTOMER CARE CONFERENCING

ENTERPRISE SOCIAL SOFTWARE TELEPRESENCE

MESSAGING

• Datacenter Availability

• UC Applications Availability

• Dial Tone Resiliency

• Site Survivability

• User Accessibility

DR/BC Layers to Consider

Datacenter Infrastructure Design

15

Customers

Nexus 1000V – Virtual Switches

Customer Environments: Cisco Unified Communication and Collaboration Suite of Applications

Access Layer

Aggregation Layer

Core Layer

L2 L2

L3 L3

L3 L3

SAN Storage SAN Storage

SAN Switch SAN Switch

UCS B-Series Chassis and Blades running

VMware

SBC SBC

ASA ASA

X X X

X

HCS Data Center

HCS Management Platforms Service

Management Performance Management

Fault Management (MoM, Ticketing)

NCare NOC

East DC West DC

Tier 1 ISPs Internet DC-DC

SIP Routing

Elink Service (Data Replication)

Customer MPLS

MPLS Tag Switching

Geo-Redundant Datacenter

Application Server Availability

Site Survivability - WAN

MPL

S

MPLS

MPLS

MPLS

MPLS

Customer MPLS WAN

NWN Data CenterNorth Carolina

Isolated Virtual

Environment

Site #1 VoIP Applications

Isolated Virtual

Environment

Site #2 VoIP Applications

NWN Data CenterCalifornia

Isolated Virtual

Environment

Site #1 VoIP Applications

Isolated Virtual

Environment

Site #2 VoIP Applications

Head Quarters

LAN Switch

MPLS Router

SRST Gateway

Mid Atlantic

LAN Switch

MPLS Router

SRST Gateway

South East

LAN Switch

MPLS Router

SRST Gateway

West

LAN Switch

MPLS Router

SRST Gateway

Site Survivability - VPN

MPLS

MPLS

VPN

MPL

S

MPLS

MPLS

VPN

NWN Data CenterNorth Carolina

Isolated Virtual

Environment

Site #1 VoIP Applications

Isolated Virtual

Environment

Site #2 VoIP Applications

NWN Data CenterCalifornia

Isolated Virtual

Environment

Site #1 VoIP Applications

Isolated Virtual

Environment

Site #2 VoIP Applications

Head Quarters

LAN Switch

MPLS Router

SRST Gateway

Mid Atlantic

LAN Switch

MPLS Router

SRST Gateway

South East

LAN Switch

MPLS Router

SRST Gateway

West

LAN Switch

MPLS Router

SRST Gateway

MPLS WAN

VPN

Site Survivability - Local

VPN

Dial Tone

X

X

• PRI

• Analog

• Centrex

Legacy Dial Tone Options

Services

• Over subscription

• Utilization – Hard to figure out

• Resiliency

Short Comings

• Provides local/long distance & Toll Free Calling

• Dynamic Subscription

• Fail-over Options

SIP Dial Tone Options

Services

• Pay for only what you use

• Increase Availability – Resiliency

• Reduce Costs

Advantages

Dial Tone Resiliency

X

1. Single Datacenter Failure

2. Dual Datacenter Failure

X

3. WAN Failure

X

X

• Desk Phone, Video Phone/End Point or Wireless Phone

• Softphone

• Contact Center

User Accessibility

Office

• Desk Phone – SSL VPN or Site to Site VPN

• Softphone

• Mobile Client

• Single Number Reach

Remote User

Office or Remote Accessibility - DR

• Switch Work Load To Different Office • Move to another office

• Reroute Calls – SIP & Redirect

• Work Remote • Desk Phone

• Soft Client

• Mobile Client

• Single Number Reach

• Call Center or Other Apps – VPN or Web

Remote User Accessibility - DR

Where’s Your Risk?

Where’s Your Risk?

Top 10 Risks Fire Thunderstorms Utility Interruptions Telecommunications Interruptions Flood or Surface Water Virus Heavy Rain or Snow Extreme Cold or Freezing Precipitation Water or Liquid Spill or Release Denial of Service Attack

Where’s Your Risk?

Leverage Your Insurance Carrier • Expert at risk analysis •Maintains extensive loss databases •Motivated to reduce your risk •Can drive premium reductions

Top 10 Risks 1. Fire 2. Thunderstorms 3. Utility Interruptions 4. Telecommunications Interruptions 5. Flood or Surface Water 6. Virus 7. Heavy Rain or Snow 8. Extreme Cold or Freezing Precip 9. Water or Liquid Spill or Release 10. Denial of Service Attack

Top 10 Risks Fire Thunderstorms Utility Interruptions Telecommunications Interruptions Flood or Surface Water Virus Heavy Rain or Snow Extreme Cold or Freezing Precipitation Water or Liquid Spill or Release Denial of Service Attack

Where’s Your Risk?

Leverage Your Insurance Carrier • Expert at risk analysis •Maintains extensive loss databases •Motivated to reduce your risk •Can drive premium reductions

Top 10 Risks 1. Fire 2. Thunderstorms 3. Utility Interruptions 4. Telecommunications Interruptions 5. Flood or Surface Water 6. Virus 7. Heavy Rain or Snow 8. Extreme Cold or Freezing Precip 9. Water or Liquid Spill or Release 10. Denial of Service Attack

Top 10 Risks Fire Thunderstorms Utility Interruptions Telecommunications Interruptions Flood or Surface Water Virus Heavy Rain or Snow Extreme Cold or Freezing Precipitation Water or Liquid Spill or Release Denial of Service Attack

Other Risk Considerations

Tornado

Earthquake

Hurricane/Typhoon

Terrorist Attack

Human Error

Tsunami

Etc. . . .

Each Business & Location

will have a unique Risk Profile

Rough Decade of Hurricanes

8 of the 10 costliest storms on record have made landfall Since 2002. In 2005 Hurricane Wilma was the strongest hurricane (190mph winds) ever 2005 set the record for the most storms in a single season lasting into Jan 2006 Top 7 Storms of all time caused over $200 Billion dollars worth of damage

2011-2012 Hurricane Season

Category 3 Hurricane Irene was first to make landfall since 2008

1st time since 1908 2 storms formed before the official start date of June 1

1st time ever recorded that 4 storms formed before July- since 1851

3rd most active on record- tied with 1887, 1995,

and 2010

38 Named Storms

6 Storms Cat 3Major +

39 Tropical

Depressions

17

Hurricanes

Hurricane Isaac hits New Orleans on the 7 year anniversary of Katrina

Dangerous storms

can return any year

Don’t become

complacent!

Hurricane Sandy 2012 $71 Billion Loss

Invest in Business Continuity Planning, and use as much available technology as possible.

Remember 10 Tips to Be Prepared.

34

What can you do to Prepare?

Plan for the worst, and hope for the best.

Software

It has been estimated that 90% of companies unable to resume business operations within 5 days of a

disaster are out of business within 1 year.

1. Ensure you can communicate instructions to employees no matter what happens to the prevailing communications infrastructure.

2. Collect and maintain up-to-date contact information for your employees and key constituents

3. Plan for your post-event roll call of employees

One way blasts aren’t helpful! You need the ability to communicate with staff and partners effectively; Roll Calls Polling Receipt Acknowledgement Live-time two way communications Conference Calls

4. Plan for a remote recovery facility

5. If you can protect one application, protect your email- you will need it

Important Documents

Contracts

Intellectual Property

Client and Stakeholder Communications

6. Have a system in place to avoid losing compliance and audit trails when the unexpected happens

Complete Legal Archive

Protected and Resilient

Easy to Search

Secure and Compliant

7. You must collaborate in order to recover

• Where do I go?

• What do I do?

• Do they know I’m okay?

• Where do I get information?

• Are my employees safe?

• What is the status of the business?

• How are customers impacted?

External World / Customers

Disaster

Recovery

Team

• Is everyone safe?

• Are you open for business?

• How does this event affect your

bottom line?

• Can I contact you?

• What are you doing to recover?

Executives

Employees

8. Test, test, and test again

9. Plan not to stick to your disaster recovery plan

“…We couldn’t coordinate the simplest of tasks…” - Large regional health plan provider

Barriers to recovery from disaster:

• Inability to coordinate communication among teams & employees

• Inability to coordinate tasks and activities

• Disaster recovery team occupied answering phone calls for basic information

• No central source for accurate, up to date information about the crisis and recover efforts

• Disaster recovery plans aren’t easily actionable or digestible

• Measuring ‘success’ of recovery efforts difficult

10. Use available technology services to provide

reliable tools, available anytime, with any internet

connection

• “Calling audibles”

•Warnings / alerts

• Instructions

•Roll call

•Broadcast comms

•Simple data gathering / triage

Email &

Collaboration Tools

•Exchanging documents

•Executing contracts

•Transferring data files

•Moving recovery files

•Complex instructions

•Task collaboration

Data Exchange Short Message Communication

Emergency

Notification

Business Value for Business Continuity Planning and Emergency Communications

Regulatory Compliance Competitive Advantage

Brand and Reputation Protection Risk Identification

Operational Improvement Knowledge Capture

Increased Resiliency Cost Savings Safety of People and Facilities

Empowers executives, reduces risk and ensures compliance is met with reports to confidently address stakeholders

• Hard to comprehend until you experience it

• “Third-world problems” became our “first-world” reality

• Business continuity not at the forefront of concerns

• Cannot expect perfection or emergency procedures “going as planned”

LESSONS LEARNED

How Truly Prepared Were We?

• How do you activate them? Who is able to activate them? What do you activate?

• Plan for multiple modes of communication – even “old school” technologies

• Leverage your mobile device management (MDM) system as a communications tool

• How accurate is the contact and other information upon which they depend?

• How do you train people on the procedures? How do you convince them that it matters?

• Will your website be a viable mode of communication?

LESSONS LEARNED

Realistically and Rigorously Assess Your Communications Tools

• Account synchronization (AD, manual)

• E-mail groups

• Provision of external e-mail contact information to smartphones

• True contact information vs. Outlook auto-complete

• Personnel training

• Mobile device management tools

• Hosted vs. data center-based

• Who supports the users?

LESSONS LEARNED

E-Mail Communications

• Reliability of information in the central data source

• Who is responsible? IT? HR? No one?

• Creation of functional and key decision-making groups on system

• How many members of those groups actually will be reachable?

• After activation, who maintains and monitors?

• Provision of external e-mail contact information to smartphones

• True contact information vs. Outlook auto-complete

• Personnel training

• Who supports the users?

LESSONS LEARNED

Text and Voice Messaging

• Enforcing compliance with procedures

• Training

• Documentation

• Listening to you

• Who support the users?

LESSONS LEARNED

People are People

• No power for communications devices

• Communications infrastructure significantly impaired

• Firm personnel who support the communications plan are unreachable

• IT department cannot travel

• Emergency communications providers are swamped

• Users have not

• Updated contact information

• Responded to drills / tests or accessed emergency portals

• Read / retained documentation

• May need to rely upon “old school” paper

LESSONS LEARNED

Plan for the Unexpected – QUESTION EVERYTHING

We’ll now open it up for questions

Questions

Thank You