Contingency Plan

[Eitsalo]

Hi, we’re on Option11C running 24/7 call center. We receive approximately 10,000 call per day with minimal contingency fail over plan. We’re looking into upgrade our contingency/business continuity plan and followings are few options. Any comments or suggestions will be much appreciated.
1) Option11 with SRG 50 (32 VOIP phone)
2) Option61
3) Option61 with SRG 50

Thanks in advance…

 

[GHTROUT]

I think it is important to know what type of disaster are you trying to build a recovery plan for.

You are reviewing alternate systems - that's not too much of a challenge in the scheme of things...I'd go for a system you can mirror like your current system if money was available to do so.

Will the system be in your current site (the one that is on fire for example) Or will it be at an alternate site (the one that is a huge cost to equip with your current capabilities)








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[Eitsalo]

Thanks for the reply. The type recovery we're looking for is automating system failover to another system without users distruption. Yes, the failover system will be on current site and we looking into invest on alernate site for emerg evacuation (that's in air at this moment).

Thanks..

 

[pbxn]

Well one of the first things to do is to do an assesment of what type of disasters are prominate for your area, and build a matrix based on that. For instance I live in KY, tornado alley of sorts, so it is more likely that I can have a county wide outage, which tells me to build alternate routes and plans in my other county facilities. Don't stop at mother nature though. If your work is near train tracks, consider a potential biological threat (nuclear, gas etc) Also there are sites on the web that show hazordous material routes for nuclear waste etc.
My matrix shows a scale of 1 to 5 1 being less likely and 5 being more likley. In the event of a tornado, I have emergancy routing in place set up with my carrier, I can call a number from my cell for instance, give them my account info, and the carrier will re-route my calls to another site. One other thing as far as contingancy, if possible, consider alternate carriers coming into main site, and the alternate carriers should come into two differant paths to your building (back hoe Joe lifesaver there). The carrier idea works and works well, as I have used it on several occasions

 

[GHTROUT]

Eitsalo, It sounds like you are playing the cards dealt to you, and at this point, you need to produce/evaluate a scenario consisting of a backup to your PBX.

It sounds like you know "this is an exercise" - not one you would consider very valuable...but so be it...

What I'd propose as the plan might be this:

Today: You have a PBX and the likely disasters are "it stops working" The likely failures include:

- Physical damage to PBX room or portion of cable plant/closets... a backup PBX is prolly a 50-50 chance of being a solution.
- Power failure...(your power loss backup plan fails to work) then that strikes out a backup PBX.
- Telco failure... that strikes out the benefit of a standby PBX.
- PBX Hardware failure... a backup PBX sounds good here.

Of those 4 incidents, only the last one makes a backup PBX look good.

Let's say you implemented this: Subscribe to a Central Office based ACD queue with either digital or even analog lines placed at some or all stations.

Upon disaster you can do one of two things:

1- If the PBX is only down "partially" you can do a "dial-access activation" of Remote Call Forward of your main inbound DN to the CO Based queue telephone number and calls start hitting the backup phones.

2- If the PBX is trashed, you can perform a dial-access or 'call the carrier' activated redirect from the main inbound tele number to the backup queue's telephone number.

-In a power failure, the backup phones look perfect because they are line powered.

-In a hardware failure, you look good because people will then come to the realization that “it could have been any number of failures…”…many of which a backup PBX would not have been the solution.

My company’s main site has a “trading floor” equipped with an

http://www.IPC.com

Trading Turret system – it’s primary feed is from our Option 81C – but it also has a bunch of Centrex lines feeding it in case the PBX is lost. Then, we have a bunch of Centrex lines that go straight to 2500 (wall mount trimlines actually) as a backup in case the Turret system fails.








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[aarenot]

give shoretel a look when you replace this system. i do not install these, but the recovery scenario is better covered by this system than any i have ever seen. even if your proccessor goes down your system does not go down. it just uses a different gateway to handle the proccessing from the gateway that went down. it will re-allocate resources and ports on the fly, and make up for a module/geatway going down. if you have multiple carriers for your circuits, that helps as well.

 

[donporter]

Co-location
You need to know what are your variables. Your site.. your provider.. your PBX
If you can everthing in a "black box" (that will still work after a plane class)then we need to make sure that we can redirect things on the fly.
What I would do? Bring your provider in a Co-location maybe one supported by your provider. Install the PBX there and run the lines over from the Co-location to your office. Make sure your numbers are Toll Free or RCF (maybe RCFVar). The local can change the Toll Free or RCF fast and they might have an automatic system you can use. On the PBX you need replacable hardware and backup database.
Co-locations have a lot of 9s and the numbers can be switch in a few minute sometime remotely.