Project Contact: Jim Gallagher, Director of Information Technology Services

Project Description:
In order to comply with the Federal guidelines, the Information Technology Services (ITS) Directorate of the Library of Congress required a Continuity of Operations Plan (COOP) that also included a Disaster Recovery (DR) strategy.  Vcentra experts in DR helped the LOC develop their DR strategy and COOP following ITIl best practices and Federal government guidelines.  Vcentra created a DR and COOP that specifies technical requirements as well as functions and procedures to continue or resume IT-supported operations following a disruption or emergency.

Vcentra staff employed a holistic approach, assigning domain experts to each DR and COOP discipline and leveraged computing resources and software systems expertise. The project team consisted of business process experts, system and software architects, and network engineers. Vcentra conducted in-depth technical reviews of systems and facility visits in order to provide a real-world disaster recovery strategy. 

The COOP developed for the LOC defines roles, responsibilities, and lines of succession. It identifies possible disaster scenarios and corresponding corrective steps. Vcentra experts designed the plan to work in conjunction with other Library emergency and contingency plans, and emphasized formats that are easy to use, update, and distribute.

Vcentra experts followed the guidelines and methodologies identified in the ITIL and Federal Preparedness Circular 65, Continuity of Operation; NIST Special Publication 800-34, Contingency Planning Guide for Information Technology Systems; and OMB Circular A-130, Management of Federal Information Resources. Our approach incorporated other facility and organizational continuity of operations and telecommunications plans as well.

Vcentra staff conducted DR and COOP testing, training, and exercise sessions using materials directly from the COOP. Based on these activities, Vcentra experts updated and clarified many areas of the COOP, ensuring that managerial and technical personnel could use the COOP during stressful rapid-reaction scenarios. In particular, the COOP clearly identified manual tasks and steps required to activate remote site COOP facilities.  Additionally, Vcentra identified COOP tools to partially automate COOP update and publishing.