Recently, CCB has carried out emergency response drills for the CCBS disaster preparedness project at its Shanghai Data Centre.  This exercise consists of both a table-top drill and a life drill for a simulated switchover to an emergency preparedness system.  The implementation of these drills has successfully verified the effectiveness and practicability of both the emergency responses of CCB’s core business system and its disaster recovery system.

CCB's data centralisation project was completed in 2005.  From then on, its data centres in Shanghai and Beijing have become the core for business handling for the whole bank.  CCB has recognised that secured and steady operation of systems and business continuity planning (BCP) are vital to its company-wide business development.  To reinforce the security of its data centralisation project, CCB started the setting up of a disaster backup centre in Shanghai Wai Gao Qiao as an auxiliary project of its CCBS system in the same year.  This disaster backup centre is meant to be a data backup system for the core business systems in its data centres in Shanghai and Beijing.  At the same time, work on the corresponding BCP was started so that, should there be any disaster, the disaster preparedness system can take over the production systems in the handling of businesses and ensure the integrity of its business data as well as the continuous, secured and steady operation of its business.

The establishment of the disaster preparedness centre and BCP help to alleviate the possible negative impacts of disasters after data have been centralised while enhancing the emergency response and emergency handling capability of CCB’s system in case of disasters.  Running of drills is an important component of the business continuity planning system of an information system.  It is also an important means to check whether a disaster preparedness system can operate effectively in the event of disasters.

It is understood that CCB’s pre-determined objectives have all been achieved in this drill: the data duplicated to the disaster preparedness centre were intact and viable; the disaster preparedness centre was capable of taking over the handling of core business in the application systems of the mainframe system in the Shanghai Data Centre; outlets participating in the drill can successfully switch over to the backup network system of the disaster preparedness centre and continue to carry out pre-determined counter businesses.

Upon analysing the results of the drills, CCB has devised a number of additional measures to strengthen its disaster preparedness system.  First, a specialised department has been assigned to centrally plan, manage and coordinate company-wide drills in future.  Second, authorisation mechanisms and decision making strategies have been added or further improved and key threshold values have been set up to provide a basis for making decisions and to enhance the efficiency of decision making.  Third, emergency response mechanisms and business recovery plans have been established or improved for various departments to minimise the effects of disasters on business operations.  Fourth, the scope of the drill will be gradually increased with corresponding increase in the number of participating staff and departments, thereby enhancing the skill levels of mastering the disaster recovery process and raising the synergic efficiency of disaster recovery work.  Fifth, CCB will further enrich the contents of PCB; strengthen the disaster recovery capability of its information systems; improve responses to the mass media and contacts with relevant organisations; set up BCP for business venues, business equipment, preparedness of personnel and processes; and drilling of all relevant plans.

Since the CCB’s Shanghai Data Centre disaster preparedness system has been set up, this is the first ever life drill integrating system switching and simulated business recovery operations and is also a milestone in CCB’s BCP development.  This drill provides real life experience for future drills of wider scopes and richer integration.  At the same time, it has a positive significance in quickening the pace of disaster preparedness in CCB, in protecting IT system security particularly in relation to its CCBS core business system and in the gradual development of its BCP management.