The above headline is one of the Bard of Avon’s most famous quotes and follows on a prior phase in the play Merchant of Venice, “a stage where every man must play his part”.  Certainly today’s cloud technologies with people and organizations interacting constantly make these analogies even more relevant today than 400 years ago. 

The theatrical theme also presents a good analogy for business continuity implementations. Prior to the first performance of a play the cast stages a dress rehearsal in full costume. This is critical as it can reveal unanticipated problems. For example, a period piece like an old-fashioned hoop skirt could restrict the actress’ movement on stage and create havoc. The same holds for a BC plan. Although it may appear fully operational, a full dress rehearsal should be staged to make sure all of the anomalies are eliminated. 

This is particularly true in today’s socialized environment where social media and a variety of mobile devices are incorporated into many facets of most operations. In fact, this environment in itself is a primary security risk as cybercriminals are leveraging the trusting behavior of people on these sites to gain access to valuable data or plant malicious bots or botnets. 

A vital function of the dress rehearsal is to assess each employee’s device and determine its security profile. In other words, how secure is the device and how secure are the backup devices and failover connectivity options? During the many weather-related interruptions in the Northeast over the past 3 years, several Internet and mobile phone services suffered severe problems. Many people were forced to use their personal devices or services to regain connectivity at alternate locations. Also, some companies require that home office employees provide their own equipment (BYOD). This can introduce another source of cyber contagion even without a business interruption unless the devices are monitored closely on a regular basis.  

Schedule your dress rehearsal today and repeat the process regularly to avoid your organization’s reality being cataloged under the label disaster tragedies.   

Max Schroeder is vice president emeritus of FaxCore (News - Alert) Inc. (www.faxcore.com ).

Rich Tehrani is the president and group editor-in-chief at TMC (www.tmcnet.com) and conference chairman of ITEXPO (News - Alert).