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Disaster Contingency Planning (DCP) survey respondents The study analysed the types of UK local authorities that completed the initial questionnaire. The responses from both Scottish and Welsh authorities were unexpectedly low. This was most likely because of the local government reorganisation that was taking place at the time in these two countries. The responses from both Northern Ireland and Eire local authorities were also very disappointing. Because of the trouble within Northern Ireland, it had been assumed that the level, interest and understanding of the issues relating to IT disaster contingency planning would be extremely high. local authority type number of authorities IT managers user managers English district council 290 86 141 Welsh district council 37 2 2 Scotish district council 64 13 9 Northern Ireland district council 26 2 2 English county council 38 16 16 Welsh county council 8 0 1 Scottish region council 10 1 0 Scottish island council 3 3 1 London borough council 33 11 3 Metropolitan district council 37 11 3 Eire council 11 3 3 totals 557 146 187

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Types of Downsized Operating Systems The survey confirmed that Unix is at present the most popular operation system for downsized UK local authority systems. The main reason for this is specialist nature of local authority applications, few of which have, as yet, fully migrated to PC platforms. operating system number % UNIX 100 64 PC Network 48 31 PICK 7 4 AS400 2 1 total 157 100

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Reasons for Downsizing The main reasons why applications had been downsized are given in the table below. As expected, 'better facilities' and 'costs' came high in the list. However, from the study's perspective, 'more user control' was of particular interest. reason for downsizing number % better facilities 76 27 new system 70 24 cost 58 20 more user control 47 16 open system 35 12 other 15 5 total 286 100

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Level of continuity planning in downsized systems The survey investigated the level of continuity planning in downsized systems. What was surprising was the low level of fault tolerance that is installed within downsized system. Associated with this finding was the disturbing fact that so many of the respondents had little or no knowledge of what is fault tolerance or disaster contingency planning! A number of the in-depth case studies showed that real benefits can acrue by the use of fault tolerant facilities. level of contingency planning yes no % yes Disaster Contingency Planning (DCP) 82 68 55% Business Continuity Planning (BCP) 41 92 31% Fault Tolerance 34 91 27%

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Types of fault experienced with downsized systems The study gathered considerable data about both the number and types of faults experienced with downsized sytems. As expected, hardware, power supply and application software faults were at the top of the list. type of fault number of systems affected % number considered disasters hardware 44 22 3 power failure 38 19 2 application software 37 19 2 network 33 17 2 user/operator error 19 10 0 system software 16 8 1 storm 6 3 1 software upgrades 4 2 0 flood 1 1 0 virus 1 1 0 Total 199 100 11

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Factors affecting Downsizing The survey examined a variety of factors in order to establish which were the most significate in causing a department to downsize an application. The table below shows the significance of some of these factors. Factors that DO NOT affect downsizing Factors that DO affect downsizing Departmental location of Central IT Experience of IT manager Central IT organisation IT experience of user manager Central IT staffing Presence of an IT steering group Central IT size Departments having their own IT staff User department size -

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Awareness of Issues relating to Downsizing and Disaster Contingency Planning (DCP) The study asked each of the 479 respondents whether actually taking part in it had increased their awareness of the issues. The expected result was that the study would have little affect upon IT managers but a significant affect upon user managers. Unexpectedly, the study did in fact increase the awareness of both groups. user managers yes no % yes Has this questionnaire made you more aware of issues relating to downsizing? 83 95 47% Has this questionnaire made you more aware of issues relating to DCP? 71 107 40% These results clearly show that by just taking part in the research, the respondent's awareness of the issues relating to was greatly increased. This increased awareness within the IT managers group was particularly surprising. It is therefore quite clear that the research was important and that the report should be mandatory reading all corporate managers!

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Case studies involving disaster prevention The importance of these case studies is in the lessons that can be learnt from them. The twelve resulted in a total of 54 lessons. case study authority type Data back-up English district council Data replication English district council Fault tolerant uninterruptible power supply English district council Fault tolerant discs English district council Fault tolerant file-servers English district council Fault tolerant air conditioning English district council Fault tolerant data cabling English district council Fault tolerant network Scottish district council

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Case studies involving Disaster Contingency Planning (DCP) The importance of these case studies is in the lessons that can be learnt from them. The twelve resulted in a total of 54 lessons. case study authority type Business continuity warm stand-by London borough council High availability business continuity English county council Downsizing to a PC network London borough council

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Disaster Contingency Provisions within UK Local Authorities that have Downsized their Computer Facilities: Lesson learnt from the Case Studies If you want to know what lessons were learnt from the twelve in-depth case studies, you need to order the full 114 page report! If your organisation: will be downsizing...... is downsizing...... has downsized...... its IT you must read this report! To find out how to order a copy of this report, have a look at our 'how to order' page.

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