The Problem
Many NOCs don’t have a documented plan that outlines the functions of the business, identifies the critical systems that enable the organization to run, and prescribes specific actions to maintain these systems during a disruption.
Others have a plan—perhaps limited to disaster recovery only—but don’t adequately protect against all potential disasters and disruptions.
This can result in the following problems:
- Loss of business
- Damage to reputation/brand
- Loss of customers
- Loss of staff
- Loss of or damage to property and premises
- Negative impact on insurance
For a quick gap assessment, consider the following essentials for a NOC business continuity plan against your own:
- Infrastructure redundancy: Regardless of whether your NOC’s data centers are physical or virtual, the disaster recovery plan should include at least two identical data centers running identical software with fully synchronized databases.
- Operational redundancy: An effective disaster recovery plan should also ensure that the NOC can continue to operate in the event of a site failure.
- Technical redundancy: Your NOC’s disaster recovery plan should also prepare for a major technical outage that poses a disaster-level threat to NOC service despite affecting only a portion of your facility. Consider scenarios like loss of a single server or network element, loss of much or all of the data center, and loss of a network link.
How We Solve It
At INOC, we take business continuity extremely seriously. Our response to an SBD relies heavily on our organization’s staff, systems and network architecture, processes, and back-up facilities. Through a comprehensive Business Continuity Plan, we’re fully prepared to maintain sufficient distribution and resiliency across facilities, technologies, and workforces to keep ourselves, and you and your customers, up and running from any location, at all times.
We maintain infrastructure in two redundant data centers in an active-active state. If one has an issue, the other takes over. These data centers are part of a regional fiber ring that encompasses the data centers and NOC facilities.
We also maintain redundant, fully staffed 24x7 active-active locations and an additional regional Business Continuity. If one of the fully staffed NOCs is unavailable for an extended period of time, staff can work out of the regional site or remotely.
As an ISO 27001-certified organization, our Business Continuity Plan satisfies the requirements for having a business continuity framework in place that addresses specific elements of information security. This plan is audited annually and tested quarterly.
