Case Study in Disaster Recovery: EZ Pass

[Stephen]

I just finished an Information Assurance class at NH Tech. The final project was a PowerPoint presentation on anything class related. I chose Disaster Recovery and Continuity Planning.

So, what are some of the things one should consider when planning Disaster Recovery?

a: Should there be a plan?

-Decidedly, yes. A plan should be in place, revied quarterly, and practiced annualy or semi-annually. This should be a full replacement drill.

b: Should we keep all our resources on one site?

-Decidedly, no. Since disasters (such as a water main break wiping out a subterranean equipment room) tend to eliminate an entire physical plant, it should be standard procedure to have SOME amount of off-site resources. This could be as little as data storage and as elaborate as a full hot site ready to take over at a moment's notice.

Also, regional locales should be chosen as necessary. There should be separate locations for NH EZ Pass, NY EZ Pass, NJ EZ Pass, etc. HAving them all located in the same facility, say, NJ, would probably be a bad idea.

c: Does our level of business warrant a plan? To what extreme?

-Over 1,000,000 cars throughout 8 states probably warrants more than an occasional tape backup.

d: How soon do we need to have our services back online.

-A wait period of 3-4 days is deadly to most non-government backed agencies. 3-4 days is acceptable to government agencies.

(I'm not happy about the current EZ Pass outage. Can ya tell?)

-Stephen

 

[ctenidae]

Didn't realize there was an EZPass outage. Of course, I don't get out much...

 

[dmc]

Didn't realize there was an EZPass outage. Of course, I don't get out much...

My EZPass has been working fine...
Must be a NH thing...

 

[Stephen]

Try to check your account online.

 

[dmc]

Try to check your account online.

It's fine...
I go to http://www.e-zpassny.com/ for my balance...
Maybe it's different...

 

[Stephen]

Hmmm... I guess NY does have a separate service center.

NJ and NH are hosed.

-Stephen

 

[SkiDog]

Hmmm... I guess NY does have a separate service center.

NJ and NH are hosed.

-Stephen

They still have people to answer phones so it aint all that bad.....but I agree it is unacceptable to have it down for an extended period of time..and no apparent explaination.

M

 

[SkiDog]

I was a little angered the other day though..I had my car stolen and obviously my ez-pass was in there. Well they charge YOU for that loss..$23.00, and instantly from your account balance. Then I have to get a replacement. Seems if your car is stolen and you can produce a police report that should be sufficient for them to waive that fee. I could see paying it if I just got IT stolen from my car..but in my case its the whole car thats gone..

M

 

[Charlie Schuessler]

I was a little angered the other day though..I had my car stolen and obviously my ez-pass was in there. Well they charge YOU for that loss..$23.00, and instantly from your account balance. Then I have to get a replacement. Seems if your car is stolen and you can produce a police report that should be sufficient for them to waive that fee. I could see paying it if I just got IT stolen from my car..but in my case its the whole car thats gone..

M

Interesting...does your auto insurance cover the EZ-PASS transponder as part of the loss?

 

[andyzee]

Actually, something like EZ-Pass should have a co-location for immediate fail over. With the money involved, I'm suprised they don't. I am presently coordinating a disaster recovery test for my company and in terms of getting the business back up, we're speaking 24 hours for a full restore of systems. For functionality to keep the business operating, we have an immediate fail over with equipment on hot standby. I'm not talking a small business here either. This is a 6 billion dollar a year company that has some big systems.