Original Date: 12/06/2004
Revision Date: 01/18/2007

By taking the initiative to develop a comprehensive Disaster Recovery Plan, the U.S. Army Aviation & Missile Command Integrated Materiel Management Center’s Multi-User Engineering Change Proposal Automated Review System software Support Group provided its clients with a world-class business continuity/Disaster Recovery Plan.

Awareness is one of the hallmarks of any good continuous improvement effort. The senior management at Multi- User Engineering Change Proposal Automated Review System (MEARS) demonstrated a clear commitment to establish and maintain an effective Disaster Recovery Planning process. The MEARS staff is aware that in today’s competitive environment, business continuity/disaster recovery is important and Information Technology (IT) professionals must juggle many tasks with minimal budgets and timeframes. Disaster Recovery plans must be written, tested, and kept current to reduce business interruptions.

Realizing the vulnerabilities of their facilities, the dedicated and empowered MEARS staff developed a comprehensive architecture for Disaster Recovery (Figure 3-2). With a clear mission to provide continuous, multi- tiered support to its worldwide users and clients, the MEARS Support Group teamed with various IT departments at the U.S. Army Aviation & Mission Command (AMCOM) Integrated Materiel Center (IMMC) to examine and study backup and redundancy requirements. Each element of support was reviewed, including backup hardware (primary web servers and database servers), software, backup power supplies, and on- and off-site tape backups. The MEARS Support Group’s Disaster Recovery Plan includes a brief description of the business processes and main dependencies on systems, communications, personnel, and information/data. The MEARS Disaster Recovery Plan also includes notes that contain estimated switchover times for service when losses occur (e.g., loss of primary web server or database server). The MEARS Support Group also cross trains personnel in the unlikely event that the primary personnel are not available when a disaster occurs. Hardware and software plans are currently being prepared and will soon be implemented to support a Continuity of Operations Program in the event of a major disaster.

The MEARS Support Team’s clients clearly benefited from the development of a Disaster Recovery Plan by knowing that their automated, web-based engineering change proposal (ECP) system is secure and ready at all times. MEARS clients can concentrate on their mission and not worry about fully utilizing and populating a system with multiple redundancies in hardware, software, and personnel.

For more information see the Point of Contact for this survey.