The SeCube BCM module is a software component that is capable of independent operation.
BCM
The SeCube BCM module is a software component that is capable of independent operation.
The Business Continuity Management (BCM) module is aimed at making sure that the company is prepared to tackle unexpected risk events that might cause significant business damages, which is why conscious planning and preparation for such risks may become a core objective of business processes.
SeCube is capable of bringing together business and IT technology/service continuity planning and recovery and also of handling them both in a uniform manner, with respect to common restoration time objectives.
The main focus of Business Continuity Planning (BCP) is planning the continuity of Business or Production processes by taking into account their resource dependencies. Business continuity planning may offer replacement solutions or other remedies to avoid the lack of business/production process enhancing resources (either technological, data, human or facility-related). In addition, alternative business or production processes may be defined. In case of alternative processes, the actions necessary for preparations and for returning to normal operations after the end of the emergency situation can be defined.
In the course of the BCP activity, the aim is to develop plans that can be implemented with adequate preparation in a specified emergency situation using available resources and competences, and can ensure that business/production processes perform at a sufficient level even in cases of emergency.
The main target group of BCP planning is the areas implementing business and production processes and the persons responsible for those.
Disaster recovery planning (DRP) is primarily focused on planning the recovery of services, IT systems and most important resources used by business/production processes as well as the continuity of service with the needs of the processes served by them taken into consideration. The objective here is to recover the functioning state of business processes, but the emergency management and provision of the continuity of service of necessary resources as fast as possible is always in its main focus.
The main target group of DRP planning is areas responsible for resources serving business / production areas. Areas of IT operations.
The BCM module is set to support the full life-cycle of business continuity management in a uniform system (taking into account the ISO 22301 standard):
When performing BCM planning, the structure and normal operating design (business and/or production system) of the company should be known and these information should be readily available. In the Inventory, resources and business/production processes as well as their dependency relations can be defined and displayed in visual dependency graphs. The Inventory function can be used to model the details of company operations and processes, and/or the functioning of IT systems. See the Inventory function for more information.
Recovery time objective values for resources can be evaluated and determined manually and/or based on the calculations and populations using the results of the business impact analysis (BIA function – Governance module).
The restoration capability of the procedures defined in the plans are compared and continuously monitored with the recovery time objectives.
BCM plans can be created in line with objectives. BCP plans for one or several concurrent business areas or processes; DRP plans for one or more systems, infrastructures, services, system components, as required by the company’s modelling practice.
Special abilities of the designer function:
Plans as results: The end products of BCM planning are the detailed BCP or DRP action plans. The plans include the completed emergency actions categorized into scenarios and the preparatory actions necessary to ensure the functioning of the plans. The plans can be exported into Word format, complete with a table of contents.
Continuous maintenance of plans: The software uses validation assessments to constantly monitor the state of the plans and to notify the persons responsible for the plan. The goal is to ensure the plans are functional in case of an emergency and to maintain their applicability:
Tests can be made for the created plans; the testing activity can be planned and managed and a test report can be generated. Test structures (wat should be tested) can be freely compiled using the plans subject to testing. Real execution times can be measured. Word format test reports can be generated on the basis of the tests.
Preparatory actions can be assigned to the plans or various plan elements; these actions have to be executed in business-as-usual periods in the interest of ensuring that the plans are executable in emergencies. These can be ad hoc (e.g. capability increasing, documentation, procurement), periodical, or continuous tasks. Testing and training tasks and even annual plans can be compiled. Task management functions are associated to the tasks, including responsible persons, statuses, and email notifications.
The simulation function helps the fast modeling of emergency events and searching for applicable BCM plans, including the generation of Word format documents.
The various elements of the BCM plans can be used to simply and quickly compile new ad hoc emergency scenarios, using plan elements specified earlier. This provides decision support based on the usefulness of possible solutions and even the quick development of new recovery scenarios.
What happens if the SeCube system is not available?
The SeCube projects/tenants in which the work is performed can be exported into a single dump file and then imported into any other SeCube framework system, where all data will then be available. The backup system could be, for example:
