Carnegie Mellon Silicon Valley is hosting two events back to back to examine how new technologies can play a role in disaster management situations. The invitation-only Disaster Management Workshop, starting March 26, will bring together government agencies, first responders, NGOs, companies, and academia to talk about the problem of disaster management in general and identify opportunities for entities to collaborate. Then in the afternoon, the event opens to the public as a free barcamp, called CrisisCampSiliconValley.
Eastern Michigan University has upgraded EMC backup equipment in its data center operations with newer EMC gear. The institution is using both Avamar deduplication backup software and Celerra unified storage for daily backups of data maintained by its mission critical applications.
The University of California (UC) system has prepared a four-part video series that is being broadcast on its public Web site to address disaster preparedness, including how to react in the event of earthquakes, fires, floods, and pandemics.
Several colleges and universities have found they can leverage collaboration software from Wimba to prepare for and respond to crises that would otherwise disrupt communication or instruction.
Data backup had increasingly become a major challenge at the University of St. Thomas. With a growing body of data in its Banner enterprise resource planning system, its Blackboard installation, departmental needs, and personal storage directories set at 500 MB for every one of the 11,000 students and 2,000 faculty and staff members, data stores were gobbling up terabytes of space.
Despite the lackluster economy, campuses must
redouble their focus on finding the right disaster
recovery strategy-- before the next crisis hits.
No matter how solid your disaster recovery plan, the consequences of true disaster languish for years. For the individuals and institutions involved, a catastrophe changes assumptions, priorities, behaviors, and expectations.
The University of Florida Foundation, the University of Florida's fundraising organization, has deployed the Proofpoint Messaging Security Gateway, an e-mail security appliance, to help keep donor information confidential.
Roosevelt University has implemented STAR/Archives from Cuadra Associates as its archival collections management solution. The collection includes letters, photos, and other historical documents.
The University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom has implemented new call center technology from NEC Philips Unified Solutions. The upgrade enables the university to expand its existing call center application, which is used by a number of schools and departments including IT support, an onsite NHS health center, a customer service center, and finance and payroll departments. In addition, the new implementation provides re-routing of all incoming calls as part of a new disaster recovery strategy.
