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A Publication Featuring The Information Services Technology of Maine State Government
| Volume V, Issue 4 | April 2002 |
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Maine storms (snow, ice, rain, wind) have certainly interrupted State government services in the past, and are likely to happen anytime! |
Department of Administrative and Financial Services Deputy Commissioner Charlie Jacobs chairs the Continuity of Operations (COOP) subcommittee of the Governor’s Homeland Security Taskforce. The committee is charged with determining the functions of government that would have an immediate, critical impact on the health and safety of Maine residents if they were interrupted. |
In December of last year, the Homeland Security Taskforce established a COOP subcommittee to promote and track the development of Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery planning in Maine State government. The subcommittee is comprised of representatives from the following departments:
Department of Administrative and Financial Services: Charles Jacobs (Chair), and Lars Rydell
Department of Behavioral and Developmental Services: William Lowenstein
Department of Corrections: Ralph Nichols and Jim Clemons
Department of Defense, Veterans, and Emergency Management: Art Cleaves and Rayna Leibowitz
Department of Human Services: Rudolph Naples and Newell Augur
Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife: Robert Williams
Department of Labor: Arthur Davis
Department of Public Safety: William Snedeker and Anne Schaad and
Department of Transportation: John Dority.
The subcommittee developed a general outline of six work phases agencies need to cover in developing their plans. The outline moves from the identification of critical functions to short and long-term responses to probable disaster scenarios. I have met with all executive branch departments and presented the COOP subcommittee’s outline.
Once departments have developed their plans, the subcommittee will review them for completeness. The review will look to see that the plans identify functions that are critical to the health and safety of Maine residents; and that they contain testing procedures for both short-term work around procedures, and long-term recovery and restoration. Particular attention will be directed to assure the continuity of functions that require the sequential performance of tasks by multiple agencies.
The following outlines the suggested plan development phases.
CONTINUATION OF OPERATIONS PLANNING
PHASE 1: IDENTIFICATION OF CRITICAL FUNCTIONS
List business functions and evaluate how critical they are to State government and citizens. How long they could be suspended without causing serious harm? For those functions that are critical, identify the information, other supplies, and the supporting IT and other infrastructure used to carry them out. Finally, identify the essential outputs of the function.
PHASE 2: IDENTIFY SCENARIOS THAT WOULD DISRUPT THE FUNCTION
These scenarios identify the causes of interruptions in the supply of critical inputs, removal of essential support infrastructure, or disruption in output. These scenarios can be in general terms and are useful in later stages in prioritizing mitigation and recovery plans.
PHASE 3: IDENTIFY RISK MITIGATION STRATEGIES
Risk mitigation focuses on minimizing the impact of the loss of inputs and infrastructure supports. Strategies could include backup of critical information sources (both electronic and paper) and providing redundancy of support systems.
PHASE 4: IDENTIFY SHORT TERM WORK AROUND STRATEGIES
Identification of possible "work around" procedures for operations can mitigate the effect of a disruption and also allow more time for the implementation of recovery and restoration operations.
PHASE 5: IDENTIFY MEDIUM TERM DISASTER RECOVERY STRATEGIES.
Disaster recovery attempts to restore the "minimal level of acceptable" functioning. This entails the implementation of a scaled back level of functioning that will help an agency get by until the full system is restored or replaced.
PHASE 6: IDENTIFY LONG-TERM RESTORATION OR REPLACEMENT STRATEGIES
The long-term goal will complete restoration of service.
Questions? Comments? Contact the author via e-mail at charles.a.jacobs@state.me.us.
