1.         BUSINESS CONTINUITY PLAN FOR SARS 

Are you preparing any continuity plans just in case your  staff  have to be quarantined?  If   your key staff is to work from home, then preparation will be required.

1.    His home PC configuration must be known.  If it is too old, there may not be sufficient memory.  If he can surf the net, chances are the PC is powerful enough.  For Win XP Home Edition, Service Pack 1 must be loaded otherwise, it is not stable.

2.   Depending  on the office system, is Linux based or Windows NT or 2000 based,  different procedures will be required to access the application.  For Linux systems, a string of Hayes modem commands will need to be entered to dial out from the remote home user.  For Windows NT or 2000 systems, PC Anywhere (remote) will need to be loaded into the remote home user before dialing out is possible.

3.   For all system customers, a phone line and modem is already in place for SD staff to dial in.   This modem is switched off most of the time.  In the event of contingency plan to work from home, the modem will have to be turned on.  No extra phone line or modem will be required.  However, this will have to be transferred to a PC serial line instead of the server to prevent any accidental errors for the Windows server.

4.  Accessing the email is another matter.  Depending on the email system used, different approaches are required.  Those using POP3 account with ISP as the email provider can then just dial direct to the ISP.  Those using Exchange internally for the email will require some extra setup.

One setup is to configure web access for the email.  That means, any staff who wants to attend to his emails whether to read, forward or reply will go through the Internet.  He will first need his own personal password to get into the Internet and from the Internet access the company’s email server through Netscape or Internet Explorer.

Another setup is to configure the user profile on the PC that the remote home user is dialing into.  As the profile takes up additional storage, it may be appropriate to just configure the profile for certain key staff.

The third setup, however, will cost about $1,500.  This is to purchase a 3Com Access Builder.  This is for remote users to dial in.  It is able to handle more than one modem line at one time.  Remote home users will then telnet from the Access Builder to his or her PC in the office to do not only the email but also running all the various applications.

The question is now to decide on the level of preparation each company would want to take to prepare for this continuity.