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Information Technology Strategic Plan

Related Links Background Communications Current State Future State Gap Analysis Annual Achievement Report Academic Plan Leadership Agenda

Contents  IT Strategic Plan (pdf)  Overview  Message from the CIO  Executive Summary  Ohio State's Information Technology Vision  What Ohio State Needs: Critical Success Factors  Strategic Initiative: Business Continuity Planning  Implementation  Conclusion  Appendix A: Project Participants  Appendix B: The Planning Process  Appendix C: Current State Analysis Details  Appendix D: Current State and Academic Plan  Appendix E: Technology Days Details  Appendix F: Focus Group Discussion Details  Appendix G: Future State Emerging Themes  Appendix H: Gap Analysis Details  Appendix I: Strategic Initiatives Details  Appendix J: Strategic Initiatives Funding

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Business Continuity Planning  Strategic Initiative

 Summary
 Full Description
 Benefits
 Proposed Leadership
 Metrics
 Estimated Investments/Potential Funding
 Recent Actions
 List of Strategic Initiatives

Summary
Disasters can seriously threaten the integrity of the university and its financial health. The university would be well served by committing to preparedness by developing and maintaining an integrated enterprise-level business continuity planning framework. The program would coordinate risk management, disaster preparedness, emergency response management, disaster recovery, and business continuity activities across the university using experts who can provide the necessary leadership, consultation, communication and training.

Full Description
Create a new program to plan for the recovery and resumption of normal academic and business operations following an adverse event.

The university needs to develop and maintain plans at both the local and enterprise-level to ensure that if an incident occurs, natural or man-made, each entity will be prepared to not only react but also recover from the incident in such a manner that the academic mission is restored as rapidly as possible. As the name suggests, business continuity planning is not just about technology, but instead takes into account all of the things needed to return the organization to normal operations following a disruption.

A strong indicator of an organization’s strength is its ability to successfully respond to unforeseen circumstances. Disasters can seriously threaten the integrity of the university and its financial health by causing devastating drops in enrollments, gifts, and grants, and slowing research. Although no level of preparedness can totally eliminate risk, the university needs to consciously choose its commitment to preparedness by developing and maintaining an integrated enterprise-level business continuity planning framework for The Ohio State University. The program will coordinate risk management, disaster preparedness, emergency response management, disaster recovery, and business continuity activities across the university. Experts who can provide the necessary leadership, consultation, communication and training will staff the program and work toward the goal of minimizing or eliminating service interruptions to critical research, teaching, learning, and outreach processes. A key to the success of this plan would be the coordination of various aspects of business continuity that already exists across the university in some form. Understanding that each of these areas are at varying stages of implementation, the program will seek to (1) assess and coordinate these functions across the university, (2) supplement areas not currently being addressed, and (3) advise the university executive leadership on enterprise strategy and operational status.

Best practices in implementing Business Continuity Planning suggest that the creation of a successful enterprise program requires a balance of local ownership and coordinated central support and administration. One of the outcomes of a program would be the documentation of the university’s business and technical architecture, environment and interrelationships in order to know what needs to be protected. Due concern for total infrastructure security should guide the documentation, which will enable all units to see how they fit into the whole university and how they can work better together. A business continuity program would enable colleges and business units to develop and maintain business continuity plans, provide a sense of security to and reassure the university community that critical processes will be supported in adverse conditions, improve the university‘s chances of survival in the event of a catastrophe, coordinate backup and recovery services to optimize value, increase the likelihood of meeting regulatory requirements, and protect university resources and image.

Benefits

• Improves the university’s ability to assess and mitigate risk
• Quantifies the potential impact of risks to academic and business functions
• Enables colleges and business units to create and maintain plans which manage risk and minimize impact
• Enhances our ability to recover and resume academic and business operations following an adverse event
• Supports a coordinated response to resuming normal operations
• Provides a global view of risks and impacts thus helping to prioritize activities and optimize resource allocation
• Reassures university stakeholders that critical processes will be supported in adverse conditions
• Improves the university’s chances of survival in the event of a catastrophe
• Allows for coordinated backup and recovery services to optimize value
• Increases the likelihood of meeting regulatory requirements
• Protects the university resources and image

Proposed Leadership

• Office of Academic Affairs
• - Chief Information Officer
• Office of Business and Finance
• Colleges and Regionals

Metrics

• Key units with mission critical processes have plans for those processes by December 2005
• All units have comprehensive Business Continuity Plans by December 2008
• Plans are tested and updated on a periodic basis

Estimated Investments/Potential Funding

• $308,000 in cash for initial office startup, external consulting, temporary staffing and software purchases; additional funding required post-FY05
• CIO will repurpose $150,000 rate for FY05

Recent Actions

• Ohio Board of Regents awarded $216,000 as Mainframe Computing Alliance grant to Ohio State and University of Cincinnati for disaster recovery
• CIO received $100,000 cash for business continuity startup planning from FY04 new funding
• Requested for FY05: $208,000 cash budget

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