Applying a Layered Framework to Disaster Recovery

Building highly available information technology (IT) infrastructures has become critical to many corporations’ survival. However, the disaster recovery (DR) industry lacks a common enterprise framework to capitalize on the value that DR provides corporations due in part to inadequate conceptual frameworks for DR that can facilitate the alignment of corporate efforts toward corporate resiliency. To address this problem, we propose a new conceptualization for the DR of enterprise architecture. This conceptual framework comprises DR layers that describe the nature of DR and its related components from a functional and technical point of view. We discuss the benefits of these DR layers to DR teams and compare our approach to traditional thinking. Further, we present a case study, its findings, and their implications for DR. As a result, we demonstrate how our layered framework of enterprise architecture provides a unified understanding of the DR practice, which one can then use to support decision making and corporate alignment of the DR practice and its associated technology

Autonomic computing architecture for SCADA cyber security

Cognitive computing relates to intelligent computing platforms that are based on the disciplines of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and other innovative technologies. These technologies can be used to design systems that mimic the human brain to learn about their environment and can autonomously predict an impending anomalous situation. IBM first used the term ‘Autonomic Computing’ in 2001 to combat the looming complexity crisis (Ganek and Corbi, 2003). The concept has been inspired by the human biological autonomic system. An autonomic system is self-healing, self-regulating, self-optimising and self-protecting (Ganek and Corbi, 2003). Therefore, the system should be able to protect itself against both malicious attacks and unintended mistakes by the operator

IDEALIST control and service management solutions for dynamic and adaptive flexi-grid DWDM networks

Wavelength Switched Optical Networks (WSON) were designed with the premise that all channels in a network have the same spectrum needs, based on the ITU-T DWDM grid. However, this rigid grid-based approach is not adapted to the spectrum requirements of the signals that are best candidates for long-reach transmission and high-speed data rates of 400Gbps and beyond. An innovative approach is to evolve the fixed DWDM grid to a flexible grid, in which the optical spectrum is partitioned into fixed-sized spectrum slices. This allows facilitating the required amount of optical bandwidth and spectrum for an elastic optical connection to be dynamically and adaptively allocated by assigning the necessary number of slices of spectrum. The ICT IDEALIST project will provide the architectural design, protocol specification, implementation, evaluation and standardization of a control plane and a network and service management system. This architecture and tools are necessary to introduce dynamicity, elasticity and adaptation in flexi-grid DWDM networks. This paper provides an overview of the objectives, framework, functional requirements and use cases of the elastic control plane and the adaptive network and service management system targeted in the ICT IDEALIST project

Autonomic computing meets SCADA security

© 2017 IEEE. National assets such as transportation networks, large manufacturing, business and health facilities, power generation, and distribution networks are critical infrastructures. The cyber threats to these infrastructures have increasingly become more sophisticated, extensive and numerous. Cyber security conventional measures have proved useful in the past but increasing sophistication of attacks dictates the need for newer measures. The autonomic computing paradigm mimics the autonomic nervous system and is promising to meet the latest challenges in the cyber threat landscape. This paper provides a brief review of autonomic computing applications for SCADA systems and proposes architecture for cyber security

Understanding the dilemmas of integrating post-disaster and post-conflict reconstruction initiatives: Evidence from Nepal, Sri Lanka and Indonesia

This paper investigates the extent of links between the processes of post-disaster reconstruction and post-conflict reconstruction in three places – Nepal, Sri Lanka and Indonesia – which have all experienced both processeswithin a relatively short period of time. Drawing on extensive interviews with policy makers and practitioners it explores the dilemmas of attempting to link post-disaster and post-conflict reconstruction activities (PDR and PCR), and the key factors in decision making by those stakeholders who support this approach, and those who oppose it. The paper finds that whilst there is an appetite among many practitioners and stakeholders to link the two processes, there is also a concern that this will be difficult to achieve in a context that is already highlychallenging. It demonstrates that in practice the two processes have largely been understood and practiced as separate, though there are some important instances of overlap between the two. Where this overlap has occurred,it has produced very different effects in the different cases. Finally, the paper identifies a number offactors that appear to either prevent or enable links being made between post-conflict and post-disaster programming.These factors include politics and coordination, the nature of the conflict settlement, the difficulty ofmaintaining institutional memory, and the importance of sustaining the pace of the processes

When organisational effectiveness fails: business continuity management and the paradox of performance

Purpose: The aim of the paper is to consider the nature of the business continuity management (BCM) process and to frame it within wider literature on the performance of socio-technical systems. Despite the growth in BCM activities in organisations, some questions remain as to whether academic research has helped to drive this process. The paper seeks to stimulate discussion within this journal of the interplay between organisational performance and BCM and to frame it within the context of the potential tensions between effectiveness and efficiency. Design/methodology/approach: The paper considers how BCM is defined within the professional and academic communities that work in the area. It deconstructs these definitions in order to and set out the key elements of BCM that emerge from the definitions and considers how the various elements of BCM can interact with each other in the context of organisational performance. Findings: The relationships between academic research in the area of crisis management and the practice-based approaches to business continuity remain somewhat disjointed. In addition, recent work in the safety management literature on the relationships between success and failure can be seen to offer some interesting challenges for the practice of business continuity. Practical implications: The paper draws on some of the practice-based definitions of BCM and highlights the limitations and challenges associated with the construct. The paper sets out challenges for BCM based upon theoretical challenges arising in cognate areas of research. The aim is to ensure that BCM is integrated with emerging concepts in other aspects of the management of uncertainty and to do so in a strategic context. Originality/value: Academic research on performance reflects both the variety and the multi-disciplinary nature of the issues around measuring and managing performance. Failures in organisational performance have also invariably attracted considerable attention due to the nature of a range of disruptive events. The paper reveals some of the inherent paradoxes that sit at the core of the BCM process and its relationships with organisational performance

Holistic Resilience Quantification Framework of Rural Communities

Communities need to prepare for anticipated hazards, adapt to varying conditions, and resist and recover rapidly from disturbances. Protecting the built environment from natural and man-made hazards and understanding the impact of these hazards helps allocate resources efficiently. Recently, an indicator-based and time-dependent approach was developed for defining and measuring the functionality and disaster resilience continuously at the community level. This computational method uses seven dimensions that find qualitative characteristics and transforms them into quantitative measures. The proposed framework is used to study the resilience of rural communities’ subject to severe flooding events. Harlan County in the Appalachian region is chosen as a case study to evaluate the proposed resilience quantification framework subject to severe flooding. The results show the validity of the proposed approach as a decision-support mechanism to assess and enhance the resilience of rural communities