Disaster recovery - loss of key personnel

[Oops_my_bad]

I'm currently drafting our disaster recovery plan. One of the major failing points we have is loss of key personnel - ie, wtf do people do if anything unfortunate were to happen to both the network manager and network technician, how could a nominated "trusted person" be given elevated privileges to the network while they sort out replacement staff.. that kinda thing.

I was thinking perhaps putting a password in the safe, but this seems crazy and irresponsible. I would like something more robust, like when they need multiple authority to launch nuclear missiles :P

[john]

Its passwords in safe, never all travel together in the same vehicle say to a conference or INSET program, different carrages on Trains to BETT etc etc.

Or just hope it never happens and if it does oh well never mind you won't be around to be cursed or worry about it

[kylewilliamson]

Never really considered this - with physical server access you can usually use a tool or two to change a domain admin logon password, and from there, you should be able to work back and break you way into SQL etc.

[Midget]

yes, but are any of your teachers or admin staff able to do that?

[eean]

There must be a local company you could use that would be able to come in and hack in to the network for you, should this extreme event happen. If you found a suitable company now you could put it in the plan.

Alternatively, how about give the passwords to an off-site approved person e.g. the chair of governers. If you only gave them the domain recovery password, they would need local access to the servers for them to be any good.

[contink]

At a guess there is someone who provides professional legal services to the LEA or the school who could be entrusted with a document that held the necessary information "in the event of..."

[GrumbleDook]

Usernames and passwords in a sealed and signed envelope that is laminated (and then signed again with a permanent marker) in the safe ...

This also contains contact details of 3 'possible' people that could come in and maintain the school system without having to have a complete walkthrough everything.

None of these three work in education at this time or are exactly local, but they are CRB checked and will not screw excessive amounts of money out of the school.

Eventually I would like to keep this arrangement but with other local schools, the problem is getting key people at those schools to sig declarations to say that our data would be respected. This is one of the reasons we do not use other schools to store our off-site backups at the moment.

Personally ... I trust the staff in the other local schools ... I just don't trust the politics in the town.

[Oops_my_bad]

Thanks guys.

All points considered then, I am thinking of handing a "get back in" password to a good lad/friend who has been working voluntarily here for the past year helping out with the IT stuff. He is now off to Uni but would still be contactable/be able to handover passwords in the event of an emergency. He is CRB checked and (IMO) is a safe/neutral person to be entrusted with it.

I think this is a good craik?

[FN-GM]

do you have a CLC or another school you can hand the password over to?

[nicholab]

Does VM ware not support virtual staff members for disaster recovery. Or can't you keep a backup up member of staff on standby in the rack?

[ITWombat]

Thanks guys.

All points considered then, I am thinking of handing a "get back in" password to a good lad/friend who has been working voluntarily here for the past year helping out with the IT stuff. He is now off to Uni but would still be contactable/be able to handover passwords in the event of an emergency. He is CRB checked and (IMO) is a safe/neutral person to be entrusted with it.

I think this is a good craik?

Would you hand the master key of the school building to a member of the PTA who was 'a good bloke'.

I think it has to be somebody with some sort of fiduciary contractual relationship to the school.

The safety of the school's data can't be dependant on the strength of a friendship or goodwill of a volunteer.

[Oops_my_bad]

Aye, this is true. But the same could be said about giving same details to a faceless company with rogue employees :?

[zag]

Was just looking at this myself while writing a "systems bible" for our disaster recovery plan. Basically its a password protected document with instructions on every part of the network and how it runs. I direct the reader to my user area where they can find all they need to run the network.

[Oops_my_bad]

They're a bit easy to crack those document passwords..

But think about this..

How do you safely ensure the person you intend gets the password to your bible? (Couldn't resist sorry)

[Jackd]

Just a suggestion, but you could use something like this and then stick some documentation so only they can get to the data and passwords?