Converging voice and data onto one network and ensuring that a host
of devices play nice together on those networks are key to
communications continuity in the event of a disaster.
And that message was hammered home recently by Avaya and several
key business and public sector leaders who got together to discuss
best practices for continued communication during a catastrophe.
The Web event focused on keeping communications up and running
during a disaster.
According to Avaya, a recent survey of 1,000 IT managers found
that 96% of organizations aren't confident that they are well
prepared to communicate in a disaster, and 30% said they have no
communications continuity plan in place at all.
Guy Clinch, director of public sector solutions for Avaya, said
many public and private sector organizations know there is a need
for some form of continuity plan, but only a handful are doing
anything about it.
"Many things need to happen," he said. "First, they need to stop
all the talking and start taking action."
The key, according to Clinch, is establishing interoperability,
not only through unified communications -- VoIP, messaging,
presence and other technologies -- but also by creating
infrastructures that allow communication devices such as radios to
interoperate with each other.
"We need the ability for any device to talk to any device on any
network," he said. In the event of a disaster, "key players need to
be able to communicate with each other."
Larry DiGioia, information services director for the City of
Altamonte, Fla., said his city has worked tirelessly over the past
three years to tie communications systems together to ensure that
everything will be up and running, whatever happens.
"We're the government; our citizens are depending on us when
things go wrong," DiGioia said.
Using industry standards and protocols, many organizations can
centralize their operations and share applications over networks,
Clinch said. VoIP is an integral part of the puzzle, but to use IP
communication tools, organizations don't need to "rip and replace
everything that's already there and convert it to the world of IP,"
he said. If an organization has aging PBXs, it can easily use
interfaces to contact the server.
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Communication continuity also depends on redundancy in the
infrastructure, Clinch said. A modular approach can assist in that.
DiGioia said the City of Altamonte has moved its communications
center from one room in City Hall to a full single-story facility
across the street. The communications center is encased in
reinforced concrete, and all of the city's telecommunication and
infrastructure feeds into it. T1 lines – in the event of failure --
are automatically backed up by fiber, he said. The fiber runs
underground, directly between the city's various public
services.
"All of our communications lines are home run," DiGioia said.
"There's no way for it to go down. We use the fiber network to
redirect calls if the TI goes down."
He added that the city uses fully redundant phones and switches
and has dedicated generators that can run for a week if power is
lost.
The project started shortly after a rash of major storms slammed
the city, DiGioia said, prompting his team to dismantle and
reassemble the entire network and phone system several times.
Now, he said, the city is looking at ways to transfer calls from
the voice system to cellular phones, and it's looking to add
modular messaging.
"We want to give folks 'anytime, anywhere' access to all
communication tools," DiGioia said.
The project has been time consuming and will probably continue
to grow and evolve for years, he added. His advice: "Make sure when
you think you've got it rock solid down, go back and look at it
again." Asking for a second opinion from an expert not vested in
the project can also help find any potential communication
continuity holes, he said.
Clinch said Altamonte and several similar cities show that the
tools exist to create and implement a strong communication
continuity plan. It's just a matter of getting started.
"We don't have to keep waiting for the choices, the choices are
out there," he said, adding that IP telephony, SIP, digital and
analog telephone, Wi-Fi, wired, and a host of other technologies
can enable communication continuity. The tools are available, he
said; organizations just have to embrace them.
"A carpenter is only as good as his hammer," Clinch said. "Well,
disaster recovery is only as good as the tools. Interoperability
among devices and networks will lead to the convergence that will
enable communication continuity."