Book details of 'Disaster Recovery Planning: Strategies for Protecting Critical Information Assets'

Title	Disaster Recovery Planning: Strategies for Protecting Critical Information Assets
Author(s)	Jon William Toigo, Jon Toigo
ISBN	0130462829
Language	English
Published	August 2002
Publisher	Prentice Hall PTR

---

Back to shelf Computer security
Amazon.com info for Disaster Recovery Planning: Strategies for Protecting Critical Information Assets

Score:

Vote for this book

The Virtual Bookcase Reviews of 'Disaster Recovery Planning: Strategies for Protecting Critical Information Assets':

Reviewer Rob Slade wrote:
Toigo's first edition outshone almost all later DRP (Disaster Recovery Planning) and BCP (Business Continuity Planning) works. This edition vastly expands the resources and thinking on the topic. In the preface, Toigo examines the question of whether people will see this new edition as simply an exercise in opportunistic marketing, using the events of September 11, 2001 to promote a fresh work. He concludes that changes in technology do justify another edition. In addition, the new pieces giving post-9/11 perspectives from various parties (generally vendors) do provide some additional insights. The leading foreword, a first-hand account of the evacuation of one of the World Trade Center towers, offers interesting observations such as the fact that the tens of thousands of people using the exit stairwells created potential problems with respect to condensation on the stairs and walls of the structure. Chapter one, an introduction to the topic, is no longer as incisive as it once was. However, there are still striking items, such as the mention of the Bank of New York information technology outage (lasting twenty seven hours) which led to a requirement to borrow twenty two billion dollars, cascading into destablization of the federal reserve fund and interest rate fluctuations. The advice is still practical, pointing out legislation that may indirectly support disaster recovery planning (although there is no mention of the widely used Americans with Disabilities Act), a detailed assessment of the uselessness of disaster recovery certifications and related groups, and suggestions for dealing with political realities. Various perspectives and disputes over risk are reviewed in chapter two, although the material becomes a bit disjointed when it ends with policy development. There is an excellent overview of fire protection and power problems, but the rest of the facility management material in chapter three is quite limited. A detailed examination of the options, products, and vendors related to data recovery (well beyond the usual discussion of full, incremental, and differential backups) is given in chapter four. Chapter five deals with strategies for the recovery of centralized systems. This is the standard view of disaster recovery, but Toigo offers good, quality advice. Recovering decentralized systems is analysed in chapter six, although most of the solutions seem to rely on recentralising. End-user requirements, touching on remote computing, virtual private networks, and so forth, are discussed in chapter seven. Examination of network recovery, in chapter eight, is useful, although many solutions (such as wireless LANs) are not perused for problems (such as security), while, at the same time, they are not pushed far enough (groups in many locations are now planning city-wide wireless networks which should be available in the event of the collapse of major telecommunications carriers). Emergency decision making, in chapter nine, concentrates on teams, functions, and flowcharts. References and resources for recovery management, mostly in the US, are in chapter ten. There is an odd inclusion of a story about vendor versus reseller infighting in the plan maintenance material in chapter eleven. The book concludes in chapter twelve. While the later edition is sometimes too verbose, this work is definitely worthwhile for anyone in the security or disaster recovery planning field. Even if you have the first edition, continuity and recovery professionals will probably find that this latest work has fresh insights that justify its purchase. copyright Robert M. Slade, 2003
Add my review for Disaster Recovery Planning: Strategies for Protecting Critical Information Assets