>> After we've initiated the project,
we've done our business impact analysis,
identified recovery strategies, and written the plan,
the next thing we have to do is test it.
What we're checking here is accuracy and
completeness of the plan itself
to figure out if it's practical,
if it will work, and if we thought of everything.
When we talk about testing,
we're evaluating the plan.
When you conduct exercises and drills,
you're focusing on employee response.
But here, we're looking at the plan.
We need to maintain this plan by
revisiting and testing it at
least once per year or in the event of a major change.
We want to keep up the plan to date and we're
capable of managing a disaster.
Senior management must sign off on
the results of the test because they are
ultimately responsible for ensuring
the safety and well-being of our staff,
as well as protecting the assets of our organization.
There are different types of tests.
Starting with the checklist test,
very basic. This is paper-based.
We create a checklist and pass it out to
department managers and ask
if we've thought of everything.
They check us or let us know what we forgot.
We don't get a lot of information from
a checklist test but it's a place to start.
The next step is to bring the managers and with
the checklist for their discussion.
This gives us a better understanding of
inter dependencies and how
things work as a part of the big plan.
It's still a paper-based test,
but this is called a tabletop test.
It can also be called a structured walk-through,
where we actually do get up and go
through the motions is our simulation test.
In a simulation test,
we go through things like can we get to the HVAC system?
Do we have keys to the generator?
Are the doors unlocked as they should be for evacuation?
We're moving through the phases of the plan to
get a better idea of whether it will work.
We then may go to a parallel plan.
Not all organizations go through this test.
We'll set aside a certain amount of processing
to take place at the offsite facility.
The majority will happen at our primary facility,
but we're doing a live test and a parallel.
In our full interruption test,
we shut down our main facility and bring
up operations at the offsite facility.
This is by far the most risky test.
Often we perform these tests in sequence,
starting with the checklists to tabletop to simulation.
We may or may not go to
parallel and full interruption tests
because they are risky.
Once the plan has been tested,
it's our job to maintain it.
Again, we come back once a year or in
the event of a major change to keep it up to date.
Our key takeaways from this module.
We talked a lot about network corporations which are
the day-to-day things we have to do to
keep up the networking up and running.
We have to maintain network diagrams and documents that
we know where the various elements
are and how they're configured.
We discussed policies and best practice,
everything from changing configuration management
to separation of duties.
Policies have to be set up to
date and we have to make sure
they're providing the administrative
control they're set to provide.
Scanning, monitoring, and patching.
This is the maintenance and evaluation of our network.
Are systems performing as they should?
Do we have rogue systems on the network?
Are we operating and save this out of the norm?
Are we in compliance with our baselines?
We should get all this information
from monitoring and scanning.
When it comes to patching,
we know vendors frequently release updates to
their operating systems to their applications.
We need to make sure we're patched because
that will help us secure systems.
We then moved in the fault management
and discuss redundancy,
data backups, clusters, and web servers.
When we implement fault management,
it does have to be all-inclusive.
It doesn't do me any good to
backup my data if the server fails
so we want to be thoughtful about
what we implement redundancy with.
Then we moved in discussing what
happens when you have disasters.
These are notable sizable reductions in operations.
We need disaster recovery plan to
respond to the immediacy of a disaster.
The business continuity plan allows us to
continue operations long after the disaster.