I was asked by a bus driver about things to come: Count on it; the violence in the cities will not get better and will get worse. The recent incident will be just a taste of the kind of thing that will happen so often that the papers won't even report them until the body count goes above 100 or more. Count on random acts of violence without purpose or reason. And expect the imposition of Martial Law in major cities. Making a prediction like this is about as difficult as predicting a falling egg will crack while it's on the way to the floor. When I said it, it was *1980* and I was referring to the *Miami Riots*. On Friday the New York World Trade Center was damaged by an explosive device in one of the first major terrorist attacks within the United States. (There have been earlier, minor ones.) As a result of the damage some major communications suppliers and service providers were temporarily out of service and some had to move to other quarters. (Of course there's an advantage; some may discover it's so much cheaper to operate in New Jersey in place of New York City that they might not come back!) So the question for those of you on this news group should be thinking about is what plans do you have for disaster or catastrophe? Where is your organization's disaster plan and when was it last updated? Does your organization even *have* a disaster plan? If not, solicit input into what will be needed to temporarily survive emergency conditions pending recovery. If you've been having trouble getting your office to pay for the cost of having emergency resources in the event of disaster, this is a PRIME OPPORTUNITY to get them to do so. Take advantage of this clearly obvious chance to upgrade your disaster plans to allow you to recover in the event that there is an event which could close down your facility or damage your site. Remember, 90% of places that don't bring their computers back up within 72 hours don't survive the disaster. One possiblility is, in lieu of or in addition to using a hot site (a location with functionally identical hardware that is running and available) or a cold site (a computer room cabled and with flooring but having no hardware) with rented computers, could be to make swap agreements with other companies outside of your area for partial facility use arrangements with sites using the same hardware as you are to allow each other to use part of the other's capacity in the event your own system is made inoperative. Any non-competitive user of the same hardware in general who is at least 10 or more miles from your site is a good choice. You should try to obtain several agreements with other companies to allow your organization the ability to do temporary running of critical production work on the other place's site. Critical is probably no more than 20% of your applications - the stuff that if not done immediately, might mean you never reopen - daily clearances of funds, accounts receivable collection, and so on. Remember what "non-competitive" means. A Mercedes-Benz dealer in Cincinnati is not competing with with a place that sells Yugos, even in the same town. But a Cadillac dealer in Minnesota is (usually) not competing with one in Ohio. Two charities covering the same problem may be competitive no matter where they are, but a charity for homeless children and a organization soliciting college scolarship funds might not be. If your machine is heavily overloaded, you may want to try to get a larger one installed or off-load some of it to another or additional machine in order to have some surplus capacity. You will need it if someone else comes along asking for help. You might want to use an agreement to allow you to offload some of your work onto another site in order to allow another place suffering from a temporary disaster to have the temporary use of part of yours. You can, of course, charge them whatever the other place is charging you for use of their facility for the difference in processing, just as you would charge them for the use of yours or they would charge you if you had to use theirs. For a non-profit organization this may be of assistance to a company; if they have to borrow from your computer, they would pay for the extra costs involved, but if you have to borrow from them, they may be able to deduct additional costs as a charitable contribution. Cooperative agreements between charitable organizations may be the best choice where they do not have the funds to support paying for a hot site even though they need the capacity if disaster strikes. This is a hot, clearly obvious issue and you need to take advantage of it in order to make sure you can recover from disaster if it ever happens. Not just terrorist attacks, but fire, earthquake, flood or other disaster which occurs *without warning* or with little warning. Certainly, use of a commercial hot site is probably the the best and most appropriate choice, if your organization can afford it, although it may think that it does not not have the extra funds to spend on this sort of thing especially as it may be considered something they may never use. It can be pointed out that if the company's hot site is in a location that takes a hit, then you may be in even worse trouble. Ten agreements with ten places that aren't competitors may offer insurance to all of them that a disaster in an area won't wipe them out. Right now, there are some simple, inexpensive things you can do to stave off possible disaster in case there is a problem in your area or region: 1. Have your organization open one (or more) clearance account(s) at one (or more) bank(s) in areas outside of your local area, and specifically in a different Federal Reserve Bank district. You may be safe and sound in Lebanon, KS, but if a bomb shuts down the Dallas area, your bank might not be able to process checks; Same for, say a Phoenix company until it discovers that its bank can't use its clearance account with the (earthquake damaged) Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. 2. Have a CB radio in your office. If someone in your office is licensed for Ham Radio, buy them a unit to keep in the office. Get a Cellular phone if your office doesn't have one. This way, it may be possible for your office to keep in touch elsewhere; you may also be able (in the case of the CB or Ham Radio, to give assistance when someone can't get through to someplace hit by a natural or man-made disaster.) If you have several Cellular carriers in your area, get a number assignment from each of them. 3. Check what kind of UPS you have and how long it will last if totally out of power. Check the batteries on it for the expiration time. Do you have or can you borrow a standby generator which would be sufficient to run enough critical applications to keep your place running until alternate siting can be put into place? How much fuel for it do you have on hand? Can you get to it in case of earthquake, civil disorder, flood? If it's a gas generator, find out about converting to Diesel which is much safer to have stored on hand, and is less likely to be a target for looters than gasoline. 4. When was the last time you had a test of a complete shutdown due to no power? If it's been more than a couple of years, it may be time to simulate such a shut down. Some places discover equipment which has been in continuous operation for so long that the equipment may have trouble restarting from a cold shutdown. 5. Contact all of the companies you license software and get written authorizations, if your licenses don't cover it, for temporary moves to different computers. Just tell them the truth: you want the ability to use a temporary site in case you get hit with an incident like the World Trade Center. You may need to get special authorization keys or you may need to get them to give you emergency numbers to call to get them. My personal preference would be toward having a special authorization code you have on hand for temporary use; if the software won't operate without special keys, and your supplier can't be reached, you could end up closing if you can't recover whatever programs you are running. I would be happy to discuss this further with anyone having any questions. --- Paul Robinson Tansin A. Darcos & Company Internet: [log in to unmask] Telex: 6505066432MCI UW Telephone: (202) 310-1011