Pandemic Business Continuity Guidelines – Be Prepared

Rapid recovery and provisioning of desktop computing

Enterprises have spent millions to provide business continuity in the face of unexpected disasters. Governments from around the world are delivering guidance to businesses on how to plan and respond to the upcoming influenza “flu” season particularly in light of the heighten concerns caused by H1N1 outbreaks.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimate that as many as 40% of the workforce might be unable to come into work at the peak of the pandemic due to the need for many healthy adults to stay home and care for an ill family member. The CDC also recommends that individuals and companies put measures in place should a workplace close down or a situation arises that requires working from home. The CDC further advises that persons in the workplace should stay home for seven days after getting the flu, or 24 hours after symptoms end, whichever is longer. Around the world, businesses are putting pandemic plans in place particularly during this winter’s flu season (2009 is the first year of new H1N1 strain of influenza discovery).¹

Pandemic planning guidelines for business and government organizations:

Ensure that you have the information technology and infrastructure needed to support multiple workers who may be able to work from home (e.g. desktop virtualization solution).
Be prepared to implement multiple measures to protect workers and ensure business continuity. A layered approach will likely work better than using just one measure (e.g. remote access VPN, virtual desktops, VoIP, collaboration software, etc).
Identify essential business functions, essential jobs or roles, and critical elements within your supply chains required to maintain business operations. (e.g. secondary site for office workers, when primary office must be closed)
Allow employees to stay home if they are ill, have to care for ill family members, or must watch their children if schools or childcare facilities close. (e.g. at-home worker solution)

For many critical business applications, virtualization solutions have been implemented in order to keep data center environments safe. However, some enterprises have overlooked one of the most vital elements of their business continuity plans – their employees. If their desktop, applications, and resources disappear, how can they work? Is purchasing, migrating, or even replicating every employee desktop to a laptop a realistic or even financially viable solution? Are there cost-effective desktop virtualization solutions that can allow users to effectively work from home?

vDesk offers business customers multiple solutions on delivering the desktop computing experience during disaster and pandemic situations. The four flexible deployment options of PC, Drive, Network, and VDI have all been implemented as a layered approach to ensure business continuity for desktop computing. RingCube’s MobileSync technology allows rapid backup for users who have experienced hardware failures or lose their laptops. In cases of pandemic outbreaks, vDesk’s ability to be stored and executed from a low-cost USB drive continues to be implemented as an IT “best practice” for temporary stay-at-home professionals.

vDesk automatically backs up every desktop to a network file share. If a user looses their PC, laptop, or portable drive containing their vDesk workspace, they can login to the vDesk client portal to download an up-to-date copy of their personalized desktop and be up and running in minutes without the help of their IT organization.

For more information on pandemic planing with vDesk, check out our pandemic solution webinar with RingCube Co-founder and CTO, Mike Larkin. View Webinar.

Customer Success

Customer Example 1
At-home workers enabled with desktop virtualization, currently in full production at the #1 ranked commercial bank by Fortune Global 500 in 2009:

vDesk for Pandemic business continuity

Customer Example 2
Secondary / backup site enabled with desktop virtualization, currently being staged at one of the largest government-backed organizations in the world:

Pandemic business continuity plan with vDesk

1. Guidance for Businesses and Employers to Plan and Respond to the 2009 – 2010 Influenza Season
http://www.pandemicflu.gov/plan/workplaceplanning/guidance.html

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