The tensions of war which were looming over Indian subcontinent
raises important concerns about the readiness of Indian IT companies
to recover from a disruption in business caused by an attack or
act of war.
9/11 caught many companies completely unawares, without a COB plan
in place or the readiness to implement it effectively. Losses from
just the suspension of operations and denial of access to critical
systems, network and data amounted to millions of dollars, making
companies globally, aware of the need to make business continuity
planning a strategic priority.
A
destabilized IT infrastructure can hold the crucial delivery of
software to customers. Hence, the need for companies to have a good
continuity plan and recovery strategy to get systems and data back
at contingency sites, thus restoring the confidence of clients.
Mastek's comprehensive disaster management and business continuity
strategy was in place as early as April 2000 to cope with all types
of disasters - natural or manmade.
Continuity of Business (COB) Plan reflects our commitment to the
interests of all our stakeholders like our customers, employees,
suppliers, partners and shareholders.
COB Strategy and approach
Each
of Mastek's Business Units has a varied mix of software development
& maintenance projects received from various clients around
the globe. Safe guarding both internal data as well as our customer's
data is crucial and drives our Continuity of
Business strategy.
Mastek's COB strategy addresses our customer's concerns about our
ability and readiness to ensure that their work goes on despite
a war situation in the Indian subcontinent. COB doesn't just exist
on paper - it's a strategy that's launched at different scales at
multiple levels throughout the organization and is backed by infrastructure
and organizational and human resources to facilitate its implementation.
To drive this strategy, Mastek has devised a COB plan with a focus
to put systems and processes in place and restore functional capability
as quickly as possible in the event that an attack hits one of its
business locations.
Our objective isn't just data or technology backup but to keep
the business running. This plan identifies and analyzes
the potential impact of an emergency and details the recovery strategy
and steps to be taken to ensure restoration of normal operations.
To ensure a smooth process for the COB plan, we follow the W4H
approach - When, Where, Why, What and How which is closely
linked to three primary objectives:
Prevention minimizes the probability
of business interruptions
Containment minimizes the impact
of any business interruption through a focus on keeping the business
running at the highest possible service delivery level
Recovery ensures a prompt restoration
of normal operations following any incidence that gives rise to
business interruption.
Implementation
A
COB plan is ineffective without an implementation plan in place
backed by resources across the organization.
Masteks COB strategy is carried out across all our business domains,
delivery units at offshore units as well as our corporate units
such as HR, administration, finance, IT infrastructure (called 'Resources'
at Mastek). It scales from individual desktops with residing software
to high end servers with most complex codes & software and from
local to wide area connectivity and also remote connectivity. Mastek's
detailed COB Plan covers Business Impact Analysis, Containment Strategy,
Recovery Strategy, and also Testing Strategy.
COB implementation focuses on the following key areas:
Infrastructure
Data
People
Process
Infrastructure
Mastek has identified COB sites both
within India and overseas, fully equipped to function and carry
on with work in case any of Mastek's current facilities in India
at SEEPZ or Pune are affected. All sites have been carefully picked
with full consideration like physical location and political stability.
Mastek's Offshore Development centre at SEEPZ,
Mumbai itself is over 800 kms away from India's northern
border with Pakistan, hence safe compared to locations in northern
India.
Pune is an important operational site
for Mastek. The range of mountains surrounding Pune, naturally protect
it from disasters affecting Mumbai. On account of it's nearness
of just 200 kms to our development center in SEEPZ Mumbai, staff
can be moved there and operations resumed in just 4 hours. Further,
Pune is at a fairly safe distance of over 1000 kms away from the
Indo Pakistan border.
Bristol, UK is strategically important to Mastek's business
operations in the UK. Europe is geo-politically stable and Bristol,
UK where Mastek has a large presence, offers an excellent COB site
in the event of Mastek's Indian operations are affected. Bristol
delivers an appropriate capability to respond to events according
to the degree of impact on the business.
Mastek's
readiness for business continuity involves equipping all COB sites
with infrastructure to function normally. Our COB sites at Pune
and Bristol have basic infrastructure as Mastek has been operating
from these sites for sometime. Both sites are networked with all
the facilities of an Offshore Development Center and can meet requirements
for normal operations in a COB situation.
Additionally we have a full complement of vital spares as well as
a very aggressive SLA (Service Level Agreement) with the external
vendors for upkeep of vital components like software, hardware and
infrastructural support.as a fall back in case of emergencies.
For disasters local to Mumbai, Pune office will act as a COB site
to serve customers. And in case of disasters affecting India, our
international COB site at Bristol, UK will be ready to deal with
business continuity.
Data
We have complete operational capability for data transfer from
our offshore development center based at SEEPZ, Mumbai to our COB
sites at Pune in India and Bristol in the UK.
Back up is managed on an entirely automated enterprise back up
solution from Veritas and Compaq. This is managed on a tape library
on the system where data is backed up on DLT tapes using a robotic
arm and bar-coded tapes, stored in a different location from the
central server room. There are different tape slots for daily back
up, weekly back up, COB back up and an additional scratch spool
for additional tapes needed. Our back up solutions can give is 3
Terabytes of data and in compressed mode, we have about 6 Terabytes
of data.
We follow two models of data back up: Onsite
back up which is done on a daily and weekly basis and a COB
back up (back up of critical data identified by customers),
done on a fortnightly basis.
Mastek's Wide Area Network (WAN) is designed with Hub & Spoke
architecture, with local hub at Seepz (India) and International
hub at Majesco, Santa Clara (USA). International Private Lease Circuit
(IPLC) is established between the hub locations. An Integrated Services
Digital Network (ISDN) line acts as an automatic fail-over for this
link. We are also looking into options for incremental back up done
over these leased lines.
We also have a recovery strategy for both external and internal
systems. For example for internal systems we would backup internal
systems data and necessary software that exists on the File Server.
For external systems back up total back up is taken and stored on
back up media offsite. Contingency tests are carried out annually.
People
Mastek's
core COB response team consists of Mastekeers
identified across delivery and business units across the organization,
assigned with specific responsibilities during and after a disaster.
They are accountable for managing the business continuity and ensuring
that work goes on with as little disruption as possible. The COB
plan lists out key actions assigned to each Mastekeer in the event
of a disaster.
Our COB team has been selected carefully keeping in mind the requisite
skill sets needed. This team is available to travel to our COB sites
at an immediate notice. We are equipped to move our project teams
to Pune within four hours and to the UK site within 24 hours. Our
arrangements with our travel agents like Thomas Cook will facilitate
logistics and travel arrangements immediately within 24 hours. We
have also ensured that both sites are equipped with people with
the requisite skill sets to deal with the situation.
The team is trained and disasters are rehearsed. The rehearsals
go on till the response is perfected. Each member's role is well
defined and documented. Each location has a COB (Continuity of business)
coordinator and a COB team who ensure that the response is swift
and customer delivery schedules are adhered to.
Process
The
first step that Mastek looks into is classifying and identifying
certain data as critical data (depending on customer contract and
service level agreements) for both internal and external projects.
Then accordingly a plan for back up and locations are formulated.
All processes and policies including our knowledge base are accessible
to Mastek employees around the world on an intranet with secure
access. New policies and processes are updated instantly and communicated
to our employees through the Intranet.
COB scenario planning
Mastek's COB plan takes into account various different scenarios
and outage durations that could occur like natural calamities like
fire or floods, riots, war scaling up to electronic failures in
server, network or power outages, LAN/WAN failures, unavailability
of csonnectivity between the development centres. There's a detailed
plan outlining the deployment of resources to deal with potential
business interruptions arising out these scenarios and make provisions
of alternate fallback options in the least amount of time so that
work can be resumed.
All these scenarios are identified, categorized and prioritized
in Mastek's COB plan to facilitate synchronization of activities
in a disaster situation.
In the event of a business interruption, COB response team will
meet and conduct a damage assessment, workload status determination
and determine the time, effort, cost and logistical requirements
necessary to restore business as usual.
Spreading the risks: The four quadrant approach
The two major scenarios in case of an anticipated war or attack
are outlined below:
Scenario 1: In the event of a non-availability
of our Offshore Development facility at SEEPZ, Mumbai, Pune will
be used as a COB site to support our customers.
Scenario 2: If all our facilities in
India are affected, our overseas COB site at Bristol, UK will be
activated to supporting our business activities to service customers.
Mastek's COB is a dynamic plan that is periodically reviewed to
meet changing business needs and customer expectations. Changes
that emerge out of the reviews conducted are documented and implemented.
Just
having a COB plan alone, does not ensure required implementation
capabilities. It involves creating awareness and spreading a business
continuity culture throughout the organization. We achieve this
by publishing our COB plan over Intranet supported by regular COB
training and awareness programs for Mastekeers. This helps us create
a self-confidence within the organization in our ability to deal
with and recover from major crisis situations.
Mastek also communicates our COB capabilities to both our prospects
and customers. As disaster management is an important part of overall
security, before driving software we always discuss disaster management
requirements and specifications from our customers about the level
of security they want.
Conclusion
Mastek's COB strategy, COB plan, COB team along with best practices
to deal with outages and disaster situations are a reflection of
Mastek's commitment to our customer's business continuity. Our risks
are spread globally in a managed way with risk mitigation processes
and practices in place. With all this Mastek is confident of meeting
the COB challenges whenever they arise.
Business continuity is a major factor in an organization's survival
during and after a disruption. Good continuity planning can make
the vital difference between strong and weak companies.
A
destabilized IT infrastructure can hold the crucial delivery of
software to customers. Hence, the need for companies to have a good
continuity plan and recovery strategy to get systems and data back
at contingency sites, thus restoring the confidence of clients.
Each
of Mastek's Business Units has a varied mix of software development
& maintenance projects received from various clients around
the globe. Safe guarding both internal data as well as our customer's
data is crucial and drives our 
A
COB plan is ineffective without an implementation plan in place
backed by resources across the organization.
Mastek's
readiness for business continuity involves equipping all COB sites
with infrastructure to function normally. Our COB sites at Pune
and Bristol have basic infrastructure as Mastek has been operating
from these sites for sometime. Both sites are networked with all
the facilities of an Offshore Development Center and can meet requirements
for normal operations in a COB situation.
The
first step that Mastek looks into is classifying and identifying
certain data as critical data (depending on customer contract and
service level agreements) for both internal and external projects.
Then accordingly a plan for back up and locations are formulated.
Just
having a COB plan alone, does not ensure required implementation
capabilities. It involves creating awareness and spreading a business
continuity culture throughout the organization. We achieve this
by publishing our COB plan over Intranet supported by regular COB
training and awareness programs for Mastekeers. This helps us create
a self-confidence within the organization in our ability to deal
with and recover from major crisis situations.
