The quarterly publication of the International Legal Technology Association
Issue link: https://epubs.iltanet.org/i/230349
would have to be replaced with desktop PCs. The PCs were ordered, imaged at headquarters and sent to the New York City office. The new PCs were configured to connect via VPN to simulate the desktop experience with which the users were familiar. However, initial testing showed speed and connectivity issues with the VPN setup, so we reverted to utilizing Citrix remote access. Telephone circuits were an additional challenge due to significant damage to Verizon's infrastructure in New York City. After the outage, the NYC office phone numbers were redirected to the receptionist at headquarters as a temporary solution. The cable provider in the building was able to provide temporary phone service on a month-to-month contract within a two-week time frame. This solution required us to forward all office and directdial numbers to the new lines provided by the cable provider. This meant all calls had to go through the New York City receptionist, rather than having incoming calls pointed to individual phones. The building's electricity was stabilized by adding additional generators, and its heating system was brought back online a couple of days after the decision was made to reoccupy. It appeared everything was going as planned as the office would be able to reopen on the schedule management requested. At the end of November, I went to New York City for four days to coordinate the data circuit install and to set up and test the new PCs. The data circuit was installed three days late due to the influx of new customers purchasing temporary circuits in New York City from this provider. Fortunately, this did not delay the implementation, and we were able to reopen the office on schedule, but not without some long hours and unexpected obstacles. For example, the PCs sent from headquarters were somehow misrouted, but we were able to locate them (with some difficulty). Lower Manhattan resembled a war zone. Streets were lined with diesel generators, Con Edison trucks, Verizon trucks and water damage restoration trucks. Numerous subway stations were still closed, making travel difficult. Many large buildings were still without power and many businesses were closed. Some hotels were closed, others were on generator power without Internet or restaurant service, and those with full power were fully booked. Users came back into the office the following Monday. With training and overtime, they were able to become accustomed to their new work environment. They were pleased to be back in the office and working in the presence of their co-workers. Due to this temporary set up, there was a significant increase in required helpdesk support. The office is small and did not have a permanent IT employee onsite. To help with the support requests, a temporary IT employee was hired to assist for a couple of days during the week for the first month. Con Edison reconnected the building to street power in the middle of December. Verizon started the process of reconnecting the building to its rebuilt fiber network in early February and finished their work on February 20th. The following day, after circuit testing, we started the work needed to reconnect the office back to our network. It took about a week to get the office fully functional and back to normal (four months after Hurricane Sandy). Lessons from Sandy Data Center Location: If Hurricane Sandy made a direct hit on our headquarters, the probability of electrical and data/voice circuit outages would have been high. This would, in effect, suspend operations indefinitely not only at our headquarters, but also at the remaining eight offices in distant cities, locations which had sustained little or no direct impact from Hurricane Sandy. We would be in disaster recovery mode, restoring from backups and trying to set up an emergency data center elsewhere at a tremendous cost. As a result, firm management decided to relocate the data center into a collocation facility. The process of evaluating available facilities is underway. Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity (DR/ BC) Plans: DR/BC plans need to be up to date. Business plans also need to be updated to include specific plans for recovery on an office-by-office basis, as different locations present different challenges. Issues such as whether a firm should have emergency space lined up or plan to have users work from home or some other option must be considered and reconsidered. No DR/BC plan can be reviewed and updated frequently enough. Rob Yates, Network Manager at Morrison Mahoney LLP, has over 10 years of experience in legal IT, including eight years spent in network and systems engineering. Before taking on his current role, Rob worked at Goodwin Procter LLP as a senior network analyst and at Nixon Peabody LLP as an infrastructure systems specialist. Contact him at ryates@morrisonmahoney.com. Peer to Peer 33