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Planning for Survivable Networks

Priscilla Oppenheimer writes "Annlee A. Hines' book Planning for Survivable Networks, is quite a page-turner. Yes, that's surprising for a technical book, but I found it to be true. I was fascinated by the stories of real companies (Lehman Brothers, the Wall Street Journal, and others) that survived the 9/11 attack and resumed business quickly. There are also stories from other disasters, both man-made and natural, and information on companies that were not able to quickly resume business. The author summarizes the stories with explanations of what went right and what went wrong, with advice on developing your own disaster recovery plan." Read on for the rest of her review. Planning for Survivable Networks author Annlee A. Hines pages 320 publisher Wiley Publishing, Inc. rating 10 reviewer Priscilla Oppenheimer ISBN 047123284X summary Designing networks that can recover from natural and unnatural disasters
As Hines explains, Lehman Brothers had headquarters in Tower 1, as well as in 1,2,3 World Financial Center (across the street from the WTC towers). Lehman moved to a backup recovery location and performed cash-management functions the same day as the attack. The company was online trading fixed-income securities by the next day. They had 400 traders online when the NYSE reopened Monday, 9/17.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) published the story of its own recovery and Hines used that as source material for her book. WSJ had an extensive disaster recovery plan, based on lessons learned in the 1990 power blackouts in New York. After the blackouts and a subsequent fire in the emergency generator room, WSJ decided that it would never again depend on just one location being operational. WSJ opened other offices that could perform some of the necessary tasks to bring out a paper. Geographical diversity of resources seems to be a key to success.

When the 9/11 terrorists attacked the buildings across the street from WSJ's main offices, senior managers called for an evacuation, knowing that they could still produce the paper. The Wall Street Journal managed to publish a full newspaper with eyewitness accounts of the tragedy the next day.

Hines' writing is easy to follow. Although she delves into some technical details, with the requisite IP and TCP header depictions that you will find in so many networking books, the book can easily be read by managers and business people. Planning for Survivable Networks has many factual tidbits about disasters of all sorts, and although these are interesting, the primary benefit of reading the book is to gain an understanding of the characteristics of companies that sustained business after a disaster compared to companies that did not.

As Hines says, the companies that survived disasters all had disaster recovery plans in place. The plans were activated by decisive managers, who also promptly got their people out of harm's way. (If people don't survive, it won't matter much if systems survive.) Another point she makes is that the managers had to be adaptable. Not everything went according to plan, and it shouldn't be expected that it will.

The book opens with the author being rocked by a terrorist-caused explosion herself. She wasn't present for the 9/11 attackers. Rather, the bombing she survived occurred at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, 20 years before. A retired Air Force officer, she has dealt with threats all over the world for many years. Her direct command and control experience has taught her many lesson, which she shares with the reader in Planning for Survivable Networks.

Probably one of the most useful chapters, Chapter 11, "The Business Case," offers advice on presenting to management a case for a network continuity plan. According to the back cover, Hines has taught economics at a community college, and I would say that experience helped her explain the many costs involved in having a disaster recovery plan, including fixed, variable, direct, and indirect costs. She also explains the expected value of having a plan and how to sell that to management.

I recommend this book as an informative discussion of how companies can ensure business and technology continuity in a world with hackers, terrorists, natural disasters, and human error. It's a practical book, but also a surprisingly uplifting book, considering its technical content. I truly enjoyed reading about the adaptable human spirit that enabled managers and workers to keep their businesses going after the 9/11 attacks.

You can purchase the Planning for Survivable Networks from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

12 of 115 comments (clear)

  1. first post! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    first post!

  2. aslkjibq by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

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  3. fp! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    trollin'

  4. first post!!! by alexre1 · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    woohoo!

  5. LAST POST by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    go read a book or something

  6. I kick ass... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    at first posts.

    1. Re:I kick ass... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      No, no you don't. YOU FAIL IT!

  7. OMG!! HOT SEX0R!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Asuka was staying out at Hikari's place tonight, so it was the perfect time to put my plan in motion. Kaji-kun had got me the stuff. He didn't ask me what I needed it for.

    Misato always bugged me to go to the fridge and get her more beer. I took the opportunity to drop the small white tablet in the top of the can when I opened it in the kitchen. The dumb slut downed it in one as she always did. She had thanked me and called me "Shinji-chan". I'd show her just how much of a 'little Shinji' I was tonight.

    The rohypnol was really fast to work. Misato complained of having a headache then she was fast asleep draped over the couch, her bathrobe falling open and revealing one of her big, bouncy tits. I got a hard-on straight away.

    I grabbed her by the arms, dragged her into her bedroom and dumped her on the bed. God damn, she looked fucking gorgeous when she was unconscious. Striping off, I grabbed her long purple hair and began to play with it, rubbing it on my 12 inch cock and raping it around. I nearly cummed straight away.

    I pulled her bathrobe open and exposed her massive F cup tits. Even though they were big they stuck straight up in the air. I grabbed hold of them and felt how big and soft they were. Lying next to her I spent about half an hour kneading her tits. Even though Misato was out cold, she began to moan in excitement. This was the first time I'd ever touched a womans body and I was as hard as steel.

    I took her long fat nipple into my mouth and began to suck it. Misato groaned. I got a pleasant surprise when warm sweet milk flooded into my mouth. So that explains why her tits were so big. I suckled her and suckled her, wanting to get every drop from both breasts, twisting at biting at her nipples to make them flow more as I was getting more and more excited until I ended up shooting my load all over her smooth tummy.

    I scooped up my hot white jizz with my fingers and held it to Misato's mouth. She started sucking all off. It was true - she was a total slut.

    I looked at her pussy. It was smooth and shaved. I could smell her excitement from what I had done before. I spread her legs and slid 2 fingers into her cunt. She was good and wet. I licked her cum from my fingers, she tasted great.

    My cock hadn't even gone down a single bit from before, so I used it to impale her cunt. I slid it in right up to the end. Misato arced her back and moaned again and again. Her inner muscles squeezed me and I began to fuck her as hard as I could.

    "Misato, you fucking slut. You like being raped by me, don't you? Don't you?" she started to orgasm as I fucked her so hard that her pussy began to bleed and her juice squirted out of her.

    I was in heaven. She'd led me on so much, now here I was, fucking her brains out and she couldn't do anything about it. I screamed as I cummed, dumping one of my biggest wads of jizz into the depths of her cunt, filling her womb and making it squirt out of her. as I did so I squeezed her tits as hard as I could causing milk to spurt into the air.

    I wiped my dick clean on her hair making sure I let some cum drip on her face. Just to think, I could fuck the head of NERV operations whenever I wanted and she would not be able to stop me. She wouldn't even know who had raped her. she wouldn't think it was me, Shinji-chan. She might even get pregnant too cause there was no way that I was going to wear a condom.

    I still had a whole bag of rohypnol left, so there was lots more fun to be had. I thought that I might take her up the ass next time. Asuka better be careful how she talks to me too.

    As I went off to my bed and left her asleep on hers, Pen Pen watched me leave. He looked very happy and there was some blood on his feathers from when he had had a nosebleed. I wonder if he would like to join in fucking Misato next time?

    THE END

  8. Applause! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Pure genius... gold I say gold!

  9. Can /. survive... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    ...VaL going under? Because it certainly looks like that is going to happen.

  10. YOU FAIL IT! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    FAILIN'

  11. kablamo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    My daddy built the atom bomb!