Norman Cool, vice president of the midwestern operations division and chief technology officer for TKC Communications, provided a strategy for business continuity planning at the September chapter luncheon. Cool used examples such as the World Trade Center attack, the 2003 Northeast U.S. blackout and Hurricane Katrina to show what disruption can do to business operations. He stated that companies must understand needs, define requirements and apply technology on a modular scale to meet business demands. Many organizations have continuity plans, but fail to exercise properly or keep up with technology, Cool said. He gave the example of tape media, which does not fare well in today's business model that utilizes massive amounts of data, faster computing capability and high speed networks that demand shorter recovery times to keep information and revenue flowing. Cool added that he has designed virtualization technologies (server, network, storage and application virtualization) into horizontal solutions to support more business practice areas.

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