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  • Staying operational during a pandemic

    http://www.govhealthit.com/article95965-09-11-06-Print

    Kriens: Staying operational during a pandemic

    Senior executives should ensure around-the-clock work-anywhere capability for essential employees

    Sunday, September 10, 2006, By Scott Kriens

    According to the World Health Organization, worldwide avian flu outbreaks are more widespread and severe than ever. Should the widely predicted pandemic materialize, the organization expects that many offices would empty out as the absentee rate skyrockets. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that as much as 40 percent of the entire workforce would be unable to have a physical work presence ? maybe for weeks on end. The country could see overcrowded hospitals, quarantined communities, millions of lives at risk and a crippled economy. The potential ripple effects are so dire, they?re almost unimaginable.

    Being prepared means providing essential employees with the ability to communicate and execute their responsibilities around the clock from anywhere they happen to be. The cornerstone of this continuity-of-operations (COOP) capability is a technically robust and cost-effective telework system that delivers instantaneous, highly secure access to all remote users ? wherever and whenever they need it to do their jobs.

    Commercial products already exist to support secure telework: Secure Sockets Layer virtual private networks provide transient connections to information technology assets so that employees can securely access agency resources from nearly anywhere using a variety of devices


    As agencies build their COOP blueprints in preparation for a potential pandemic, the federal government should consider the following recommendations.

    Deploy a secure, integrated and intelligent infrastructure.
    Achieving the secure connectivity and control necessary to maintain government operations in a crisis involves a much more technically demanding set of requirements than simply surfing the Internet. Agencies would need an integrated and intelligent infrastructure that provides for the ready transmission of data. The telework infrastructure is most likely the same one we use every day. However, for more challenging scenarios, agencies may need an emergency communications system that relies on satellite communications.


    Focus on critical employees first.

    The best place to launch an effective telework implementation for COOP is with the country?s leaders and senior, critical executives. They are the people who must be able to plan, organize and execute their agencies? responses at a moment?s notice. They must be able to set the agenda for how their agencies apportion work to all of their remote employees to maintain operations as efficiently and effectively as possible.

    Maintain the integrity of the network by authenticating and authorizing end users.

    Effective remote work plans have two significant components: the business rules that determine who has access to what information and under what conditions, and the technical environment that supports the business rules.

    Allow use of best-in-class technologies through open standards.

    In an emergency such as a pandemic, communications will come from many disparate sources. As a result, technologies that govern information access and authentication must be able to recognize and interoperate with a broad spectrum of these sources.
    Kriens is chairman and chief executive officer of Juniper Networks

    .
    "The next major advancement in the health of American people will be determined by what the individual is willing to do for himself"-- John Knowles, Former President of the Rockefeller Foundation

  • #2
    Re: Staying operational during a pandemic

    bump this

    Comment


    • #3
      Dry Run for a Total Shut Down -- Losing Telecommunications

      Asia wakes up to life without technology

      <!-- /headline --><!-- subhead --><!-- /subhead --> <!-- byline -->
      By Seth Mydans
      Published: December 27, 2006


      <!-- /byline --><!-- body text --> <script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript"> document.writeln('<div id="bodyText" style="font-size: ' + currentTextSize + 'px; line-height: ' + currentLineHeight + 'px;">'); </script> <!-- /article tools - narrow (used with span photos) --> <!-- copy --> BANGKOK: It was a tsunami for the digital age, a collapse of the virtual world that radiated through much of Asia and beyond after an undersea earthquake late Tuesday off the coast of Taiwan.
      People woke Wednesday to find themselves without e-mail or the Internet and, in some cases, without telephone connections, cut off from the real world around them.
      The earthquake, which triggered a tsunami alert and some physical damage, ruptured two of the undersea cables that are part of a communications fretwork that circles the globe.
      Coming on the second anniversary of the Asian tsunami that killed 230,000 people, it was a reminder of the world's increasing dependence on communications technology.
      Financial companies and technology services suffered most directly, with banking services and securities trading all but crippled. Operations from travel agencies to newspapers to schools were struggling to maintain their routines.
      <!-- sidebar --> <!-- related articles --> Related Articles



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      <!-- /today in links --> <!-- 170 x 60 ad -->
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      <!-- /sidebar --> "You don't realize until you miss it how much you rely heavily on technology," said Andrew Clarke, a sales trader in Hong Kong. "Stuff you took for granted has been taken away and you realize, 'Ah, back to the old way, using mobiles'" ? an old way that itself is not so old.
      In this time of rapid change, it is easy to forget how quickly innovations have become necessities, from mobile phones to the Internet to e-mail to instant messaging on both the computer and telephone.
      "I'm completely dependent on the Internet," said Robert Halliday, an American writer based in Bangkok. "If the Internet goes down for half a day people can just stay in bed in terms of getting any work done."
      On Wednesday he was stymied in trying to get information for a review he was writing of a Romanian DVD. It takes a moment to realize what a task that would have been just a few years ago.
      Indeed, the word "instant" seems to have lost some of its edge. It has become the norm, and anything else seems agonizingly slow.
      When Halliday's mother, a woman in her 80s, wants to reach him, she taps a message into her telephone from the United States. "All of a sudden," he said, "there's a message on the phone, 'Oh, you should be here, the azaleas are out.'"
      Without e-mail, Ken Streutker, a Dutch Canadian actor and producer in Thailand, had no way to arrange an airport meeting with a friend who was flying in to Bangkok.
      "Now I'll have to stand there at the airport with the traditional hand-written sign and hope that someone notices," he said.
      Many enterprises found themselves paralyzed without the Internet.
      In Beijing, Wang Yifei, an independent television producer, sent instant telephone messages when her Internet connection was down.
      "I had a horrible day," she said. "I've been complaining about this all day. This high-tech world of ours. It didn't happen in the old days. In the end I can't do anything."
      In Manila, Abe Olandres, who owns and runs a Web-hosting company, just about gave up. He said he planned to try a Wi-Fi hot spot in a coffee shop after struggling at the office all day.
      "This is killing me," he said. For his customers, it may have been worse. When their service went down, they tried to reach the help desk, but it was down, too.
      In Hong Kong, Niall Phelan, the creative director of APV, a media production company based there, said he usually receives about 300 e-mails a day. On Wednesday, he said, he got none.
      Without e-mail, he was back to the old-fashioned way of communicating, by telephone, which greatly multiplied his work. "Usually, one e-mail is cc'd to lots of people," he said. "But, with calling, you have to contact all six involved people individually."
      With their work day disrupted, he said, "Most people I spoke to in Hong Kong today are just twiddling their thumbs."
      He made the best of it.
      "What I did today was eight hours of filing," he joked. "I had a year's worth of paperwork. If the Internet is still down tomorrow, maybe I will finish it."
      Even without the help of technology, work seems to have its own momentum.
      Lucy Fennell, regional business development director at the same company, stayed late in the office despite the enforced slowdown.
      "What I did do today was, well..." she laughed. "I've filled in my diary for all of next year, you know, with friends' birthdays and things. I guess you have to do that."
      Carolyn Mison-Smith, director of a language center in Singapore, found in the communications crash a concrete demonstration of the interconnectedness of the world.

      "Cables all over the seabed," she said. "I don't know if your average dude appreciates that fact."
      She added, "If they've got cords going all over the seabed, I think that's fascinating."


      Comment


      • #4
        Instant Collapse of Telecommunications... How About That!!

        Quake In Pacific, China Cut Off
        12.27.06, 11:39 AM ET


        Asia avoided the tsunamis that were feared after an earthquake struck Taiwan on Tuesday night, but the Internet was a casualty of the temblor, which ruptured telecommunications cables under the Pacific.
        Hong Kong and Mainland Chinese Internet users were disconnected from Western websites in the aftermath of the quake. Besides knocking out information websites ? including Forbes.com ? some of Hong Kong's online trading platforms were shut down by the quake.
        The Hong Kong listed Tai Fook Securities Group, for example, announced in this afternoon that it was unable to provide timely Internet trading and quotations.
        The 7.1 magnitude earthquake shock Taiwan at before 8:30 on Tuesday night. The quake struck 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) under the sea near Kaohsiung, leaving two people dead, at least 42 injured, a series of aftershocks and several cables broken under the sea.
        Data cables connecting China to the rest of the world are owned by a number of telecommunications companies including PCCW (nyse: PCW - news - people ), Hutchison Global Crossing and China Telecom (nyse: CHA - news - people ).
        PCCW, the major internet provider and fixed line operator in Hong Kong told the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong that half of its connections to Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and North America were affected.
        As Internet links between East Asia and Europe often run through North America, users may not be able to visit the European portals as well. Though workers are repairing the damage, PCCW foresees Internet traffic congestion for the coming few days because data capacity has been reduced to 50%, which greatly affects online speed.
        Hutchison Global Grossing, the telecom subsidiary of Hutchison Whampoa (other-otc: HUWHY - news - people ), was also busy with fixing its undersea cable and explaining the problem to customers such as the University of Hong Kong. A bulk email sent out by the university Wednesday morning revealing the problem was expected to last 12 hours. ?The international Internet connection has become very slow or unreachable since last night. HGC, our Internet service provider, is working to repair the cable, but they expect that it will take another 12 hours to recover the service.?
        China Telecom also said some fiber-optic cables connecting China to the United States via Taiwan were damaged by the earthquake. It warned users that aftershocks could slow repair times.

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: Staying operational during a pandemic

          Telecom during a pandemic assumes the following exist:

          * Electrical power to all points in the extended wide area network--from mainframe to teleworkers

          * Operational phone / data lines

          * End user access to necessary hardware / software to telecommute

          * Adequate tech support for teleworkers

          CAVEAT: telecom is perfect for movement of information / data. It does nothing at all to move actual commodities (food, goods, physical services, cash)--which will be needed immediately--and critically.

          Comment


          • #6
            What It's Like to Lose Access to Water...Mumbai

            Forewarned is forearmed...water, phone, internet... we get free "training" courtesy of the MSM. Sudden terminations are one thing; forenotice in Mumbai still had negative reprecussions. My sense is that people will get very antsy and very emotionally charged very, very quickly...within a half day of learning that they/we are trapped "without".

            Mumbai residents go without water

            <!-- S BO --> <!-- S IBYL --> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="416"> <tbody><tr> <td valign="bottom"> By Monica Chadha
            BBC News, Mumbai
            </td> </tr> </tbody></table>

            <!-- E IBYL --> <!-- S IIMA --> <table align="right" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="203"> <tbody><tr><td> Mumbai's water pipelines are old and rusty

            </td></tr> </tbody></table> <!-- E IIMA --> <!-- S SF --> Millions of people have spent a day without water in the western Indian city of Mumbai (Bombay) because of repairs to the existing pipelines.

            Engineers say they have now completed repairs and are restarting supplies to the city's 18 million people.
            Authorities gave notice of their decision and asked people to stock up on water ahead of the shutdown.
            Water pipelines in most Indian cities are old and rusty. Leakages leading to contamination of supplies are common. <!-- E SF -->
            Bombay municipal commissioner Johny Joseph told the BBC news website the city needed 3,900m litres of water every day against the present supply of 3,200m.
            <!-- S IBOX --> <table align="right" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="208"> <tbody><tr> <td width="5"></td> <td class="sibtbg"> We showered and washed our clothes the night before


            Chisy Das, Mumbai resident

            </td> </tr> </tbody></table> <!-- E IBOX --> "To augment this shortage and increase water supply, we need to connect new pipelines to the existing system and carry out repairs in existing reservoirs," he said.

            Mr Joseph said this work needed to be carried out in a "waterless atmosphere" and therefore authorities had to shut off water supply for 24 hours.
            Long queues
            The water supply is expected to be fully restored by Thursday morning.
            After the warning, people stood in long lines on Tuesday evening and early Wednesday morning to collect water from public taps and water tankers.
            <!-- S IIMA --> <table align="right" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="203"> <tbody><tr><td> Mumbai needed another 700m litres of water a day

            </td></tr> </tbody></table> <!-- E IIMA -->

            They stored water in buckets, vessels and even plastic pouches.
            A resident of western suburb Bandra, Chaitali Patel, washed her dishes the night before and stored water in buckets and cooking vessels to see her through the hours of drought.
            "I did not leave anything for my maid to do because there would be no running water by the time she came in the morning," she said.
            "I even washed my hair last evening because I knew I would barely have enough water to take a quick shower in the morning."
            Media professional Chisy Das said she moved to Mumbai seven years ago and this was the first time she had experienced such a water shortage here.
            "I filled my utensils and buckets because we don't have big containers to store water like we do in other towns where water shortage is a normal occurrence," she said.
            "We all showered and washed our clothes the night before. Today, the entire family is eating all three meals out to avoid having dirty dishes in the sink."
            Water tankers were much in demand to help deal with water shortage.
            Some charged double of what they would normally charge for supplying water to various houses and residential colonies.


            http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6211885.stm

            <!-- E BO -->

            Comment


            • #7
              Re: Staying operational during a pandemic

              http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6213501.stm

              Asia's internet and phone networks were getting back to normal on Thursday two days after an earthquake off Taiwan severely disrupted services.


              Businesses and internet providers reported sporadic problems, as phone companies warned it could take weeks to repair damaged undersea cables.
              The earthquake, of magnitude 7.1 according to the US Geological Survey, struck off Taiwan's southern coast.

              Services in Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, South Korea and Japan have been hit.

              An official with Taiwan's largest phone company, Chunghwa Telecom, said most of the region's internet and phone services would be restored on Thursday, as operators switched traffic away from the damaged cables.
              "We are renting transmission capacity from private cable operators," said Wu Chih-ming.



              But millions of internet and phone users from South Korea to Hong Kong continued to encounter problems and delays.

              Hong Kong's government asked people not to log on to overseas sites unnecessarily.

              An official with Hong Kong's Telecommunications Authority said all seven of the submarine optical fibre cables serving the territory had been affected. "Six of them have been completely damaged and there is a remaining one with a limited capacity," said Au Man-ho.

              Ships have been dispatched from both Taiwan and Hong Kong to repair the damaged cables.

              Engineers said that process could take two to three weeks, although most people will see services back to normal before then.



              .
              "The next major advancement in the health of American people will be determined by what the individual is willing to do for himself"-- John Knowles, Former President of the Rockefeller Foundation

              Comment


              • #8
                Re: Staying operational during a pandemic

                Earthquake Causes Cable Interruption, Nearly 10,000 .Com Domains Lost

                <table class="author" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td align="left"> Central News Agency
                </td> <td align="right">Jan 11, 2007</td> </tr></tbody></table>

                TAIPEI?The undersea cable interruption caused by the Hengchun Earthquake<sup> 1</sup> on the evening of December 26 at Pingdong Coast resulted in the abrupt loss of nearly 10,000 .Com domains in mainland China because the owners couldn't renew their service.

                According to a report by Beijing Times , more than 9,000 .Com domains were unofficially deleted due to their failure to renew their memberships on time. The number of .Com customers who lost registered domains increased 10-fold than usual after the earthquake.

                Liu Ningbo, a Chinese Internet staff member, said that some .Com domain registration servers are located in foreign countries. To register a .Com domain, or update the data and renew a membership, you have to connect to an overseas server first. However, due to the cable interruption, a number of investors couldn't update their .Com data, which led to difficulty in maintaining their .Com domains.

                Liu also said that those who lost their .Com domains are either individual investors or large-scale enterprises. Now, a number of .Com domains used by the enterprises have been snatched by overseas .Com investors, which caused the loss of those businesses.

                According to the report, as the repair of the undersea cable will take nearly a month, the Chinese .Com domain registration server will continue to be down. [during non-pandemic conditions ]

                Note [1]: Two earthquakes scaling 7.2 and 6.7 took place at Hengchun, Pingdong Coast at 8:26 and 8:34 pm on December 26 2006. The epicenter was located 15 kilometers from Taiwan and about 350 kilometers from the coastline of China.


                http://en.epochtimes.com/news/7-1-11/50326.html
                "In the beginning of change, the patriot is a scarce man (or woman https://flutrackers.com/forum/core/i...ilies/wink.png), and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for it then costs nothing to be a patriot."- Mark TwainReason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it. -Thomas Paine

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