Salsa-DR Working Group
April 4, 2008

**Attending**
Don MacLeod, Cornell University (chair)
Norma Jean Loftus, NGI Group
Greg Monaco, Great Plains Network
Heather Flanagan, Stanford University
Joe St. Sauver, Internet2/University of Oregon
Steve Perez, Trinity University
Rodney Petersen, EDUCAUSE
Steve Olshansky, Internet2

**Action Items**
[AI] (Steve Olshansky) will set up a section in the Salsa-DR wiki space to be used for the development of a DR survey. https://spaces.internet2.edu/display/salsadr

[AI] (All Interested) members of the working group will meet at the Internet2 Spring Member Meeting concerning best practices for testing DR plans. This will also be on the agenda for the next call.

[AI] (Don MacLeod) will develop a list of issues for people to consider when considering outsourcing hosted email.

**Best Practices Guidelines and How-to Framework**

The working group has been discussing ways to gather information about best practices in disaster recovery. One concept involves schools reaching bilateral agreements, serving as back-ups for one-another. Informal discussions have shown that this may be more prevalent than originally thought, but there may be a reluctance to discuss the agreements publicly.

A suggestion is to create an anonymous survey to explore this and other topics, such as contingency planning or testing methods for recovery plans. Don MacLeod and Heather Flanagan will draft a survey. Heather will send out a note to the email list with information on the survey project and the address for the wiki.

[AI] (Steve Olshansky) will set up a section in the Salsa-DR wiki space to be used for the development of a DR survey. https://spaces.internet2.edu/display/salsadr

**Outsourcing of Email and Other Services**

Cornell is looking at moving students to a third-party hosted email resource, such as Google or Microsoft. They are exploring the underlying issues, such as the level of data integrity, the redundancy that exists and issues related to back-up and recovery. Also of interest is how having a hosted service might impact the university’s ability to contact large groups of people in an emergency.

This topic sparked considerable interest. Don MacLeod will prepare of a summary of some of the questions and concerns that Cornell is addressing during this process.

**Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity Planning/Testing**

The working group discussed sponsoring and/or promoting a “test your business continuity” day. This may involve developing a simulated disaster or pandemic. Staff members could be designated as “not available today” and equipment might be tagged as having failed.

EDUCAUSE has been considering something similar and could, perhaps, take the lead or serve as a co-leader with Internet2 and the Salsa-DR Working Group. The working group also discussed having such a day at the end of September, with the thought of reporting the results at the Internet2 Fall Member Meeting. It was noted that September is national emergency preparedness month and October is National Cyber Security Awareness month.
http://www.staysafeonline.org/events/

There was also discussion about developing best practices for testing a disaster plan. One idea: the proposed event could, for example, be used as a way to test various methods of contacting people in an emergency. This topic will be on the agenda for the BoF at the Spring Member Meeting. In addition, several interested members of the working group will meet at the Member Meeting for further discussions.

Rodney Peterson reported that EDUCAUSE, during its regional conferences this year, has been holding discussion sessions on emergency notification systems. Several institutions have shared information about the implementation of their systems – including successes and lessons learned. EDUCAUSE will also be holding a summit on the role of IT in campus safety and security. That information will feed into a national summit with other professional organizations within higher ed (such as NACUBO).

**Virtual Containers**

Don MacLeod reported that Cornell has started a Virtual Container business on campus and is considering offering the service to other institutions. So far, most campus customers want just a raw container – no operating system – that they can use and treat as if it were their own server. Stanford has been interested in something similar – they call a condo model – where central IT supports the infrastructure, including the operating system, but the individual campus units support all other aspects.

The BoF at the Internet2 Spring Member Meeting is Monday, April 21, 8:30-10 a.m.
http://events.internet2.edu/2008/spring-mm/sessionDetails.cfm?session=10000007&event=280