Олена Вірун “Disaster recovery of the customer’s business and the BA role in this process”

1. Disaster recovery of
the customer’s
business and the BA
role in this process
SEPTEMBER,
2017

2. BAQ | BY OLENA VIRUN
Olena Virun
Senior Business analyst, EPAM
6+ years of BA experience within various projects:
- Implementation of ERP systems such as Workforce
management and Learning management;
- Implementation of banking systems for AUTO, Mortgage
and consumer loans with implementation of BI
reporting;
- Enterprise infrastructure audit and Disaster recovery
processes modeling, preparation, coordination;
BA trainer and mentor.
Speaker on BA conferences.
Recourse manager

3. BAQ | BY OLENA VIRUN
What will be discussed?
1. Why the disaster recovery topic is on the plate?
2. Which projects need DR procedure, why BA has to be involved and what are the benefits for himself?
3. Mandatory steps to perform DR successfully. Alignment business continuity process to the most critical
4. What should the BA know, which skills should have, to achieve success in such types of tasks?
5. Q&A

4. BAQ | BY OLENA VIRUN
Why the disaster recovery topic is on the plate?
The main goal of each business: TO MAKE MONEY
They require products/systems that will help to make money and continuous functi
How to achieve business
continuity? Develop and implement plan of the reaction on an immediate
situations : Disaster recovery plan
Business continuity
plan
Disaster recovery
plan
Disaster
event
Disaster recovery plan Implementation
Business continuity plan Implementation
Plan Assessment
Plan revision

5. BAQ | BY OLENA VIRUN
What makes a business continuity life circle?
Plan
DeliverTest
Maintain
Understand
1. Understand what constitutes are critical proc
2. Plan how they are involved
3. Design and deliver the solution
4. Test the solution and make improvements
5. Maintain the solution and perform changes wh

6. BAQ | BY OLENA VIRUN
Why the BA must be involved to the planning of BC/DR
process?
BA knows the product:
 Systems interdependencies
 Integrational points
 Aware with technical aspect
BA knows the business:
 Critical for production components
 Business processes
 Business rules
BA knows the people:
 Customer(s)/PO
 Department structure and responsible
 Development and infrastructure team

7. BAQ | BY OLENA VIRUN
Conduct audit of
systems/servers/servi
ces
Gaps and
dependencies
identification
Initiate DR
preparation
process
Systems criticality
prioritization
Develop possible
plans of DR for critical
systems
Conduct
preoperational steps
to the DR
Perform DR tests
Edit documentation and
fix bugs according to the
DR test results
Conduct audit every
Quarter/HY
Maintenance
DR procedure is
ready
During these
steps all
stakeholders are
define
During these
possible DR
scenarios
must be defined
Mandatory steps to perform DR successfully.

8. BAQ | BY OLENA VIRUN
Applications, databases, services, servers etc.
unreachable
Loss of technology The technology you use is not available or doesn’t work
Loss of a building
A building is destroyed or out of action for the medium
to long term
Loss of staff
Loss of infrastructure:
partial or full
Key staff members are unable to attend work
 Conduct servers audit
 Conduct Systems and services audit
 Perform DBs audit
 Identify dependencies between applications
 Define the current possibilities of the DR solution
 Prioritize systems/services by criticality
Required steps in system
audit
Possible DR scenarios:
Steps of audit and possible development of the situation

9. BAQ | BY OLENA VIRUN
How to identify stakeholders correctly?
Crisis management team,
Which is responsible for monitoring the business for potential
interruption events and they making sure that timely action
is taken, which would normally involve invoking the business
continuity plans and recovering any required IT services
Prioritize systems and services
by criticality
Continuity planners:
Who identify what is critical and decide how it can be
continued through an interruption
Identify which infrastructure
parts must be restored and
which applications up
IT service continuity professionals:
Who are responsible for making sure the critical IT services
are available to support critical business activities
Identify how the result will be
tracked and success criteria o
the DR process

10. BAQ | BY OLENA VIRUN
Risks, milestones, resistances
What can interfere the DR
processes establishment?
Budget
constraints
Limited human
resources
Unwilling to take
responsibility
Why engagement of stakeholders can
be challengeable?
Load on the production
development tasks
Lack of knowledge about
systems
Difficult alignment due
time zones
Why are DR tests so difficult?
Alignment of
many teams
Unidentified
dependencies
Business of primary
stakeholders
Environment issues,
limitations…
Etc. Etc. etc…

11. BAQ | BY OLENA VIRUN
As a result
What do we need
to have:
 A policy that sets out what is expected in terms of business
continuity
 A business process that says how the organization will achieve
business continuity
 A set of tools and templates that can be used by people following
the process to ensure consistent and high-quality results
 Someone who is accountable for making sure that business
continuity is in place and effective
 An ongoing business continuity program that manages all activities
 A set of people who have clear responsibility for the activities that
relate to business continuity

12. BAQ | BY OLENA VIRUN
Super BA
Mandatory
skills
 Great communication, persuasion, negotiation skills
 Deep domain knowledge and understanding of the co
 Good technical skills, infrastructure knowledge
 Good detective skills: ability to identify hidden depe
 Good organizational skills
 Perfect problem solving skills and stress resistance
 Ability to create high quality documentation

13. BAQ | BY OLENA VIRUN
Tha
nk
You!

14. CONTACT ME
Olena_Virun@epam.com
Ellena1412
Olena Virun
Elena Virun