Surviving past 2012

In developing a Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Planning firstly we need to understand the different between the Disaster Recovery (DR) and Business Continuity (BC). The different between Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity can be described with the following scenario.

In an incident where the fire sweeps the server room where all the servers reside, destroying everything in it including all the servers and the entire supporting infrastructure, the network routers, the LAN Switches, the network cabling and everything – nothing left. In the documentation of your business continuity and disaster recovery planning, you will take some Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity processes.

Disaster Recovery (DR) example:

To restore the data (thanks to your daily backup strategy) to alternate servers in an alternate site, you need to do the recovery to a basic operational level. This will allow the users to continue working immediately after the restoration completed and the system is available again. This is the DR part of your business continuity and disaster recovery planning processes.

Business Continuity (BC) Example:

In an effort to invoke the full Business Continuity plan for this fire disaster, you would do the following steps:
• Purchasing new server units including the supported equipments including Switches, Routers network, and other networking infrastructures
• Rebuilding the physical server rooms and other facilities such as network cabling, server racks with a new and much better design including the easy to reach fire extinguisher placement and other things to comply with the HSE.
• Long hard works of migrating the current data and users management to new system
We see now the different between the disaster recovery and business continuity which all should be managed within your Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Planning.

Business Continuity Disaster Recovery Planning

Every organization should manage the information system infrastructure and protect against any potential threats, and should also manage the disaster recovery and business continuity planning against any damage or loss in the event of a disaster. Threats to IT infrastructure are real and costs companies millions of dollars each year, therefore guidelines about disaster recovery planning must be developed to assist in the identification and prevention of potential risks which may impact the business.

Business continuity and disaster recovery planning provides a framework for the recovery of your IT infrastructure from any kinds of specific disaster both large and small in scale. A Disaster Recovery planning assists in providing a pre-defined and co-ordinate list of steps for the minimization of the overall effects of a disaster and recovery from a disaster. During or following a disaster, a Disaster Recovery planning aids in avoiding confusion to ensure a swift recovery to a stable level of business continuity operations.

Preventive Strategy

In your business continuity and disaster recovery planning should manage the Preventive Strategies which includes the methods that should be taken to avoid a potential disaster from happening.
Such measures are crucial to the mitigation of the risk and are usually implemented upon the identification of a potential risk. Examples of preventative strategies include:

• Daily backup and Data backup in a weekly or monthly basis should be taken stored off site.
• Properly and well managed firewalls will protect from potential hacking or any types of network security threats.
• Anti-virus software deployed to all the servers and computers to protect the virus outbreaks
• Two redundant Internet connections being terminated into two different exchanges to avoid loss of Internet connectivity.

Recovery

In your business continuity and disaster recovery planning, recovery strategies should include the steps t taken when a disaster occurs. The executions of the steps should be swift to avoid the prolonged timeframes in an acceptable level of operation. The following are examples of recovery strategies:
• Performing a regular data restore test from the tapes should be done to make sure that data restoration will work perfectly in case of disaster.
• Managing the alternate server room with acceptable standby backup servers in the event of the main server rooms facilities destroyed. Particularly the domain servers and or DNS server which are critical to the operation of the system
• Spare server in an alternative location for the restoration of the data in the event of the main file and print servers failing.
Being prepared for a disaster is much better before the disaster destroy everything.

Federal tax laws exempt property up to two million dollars from estate tax. They also allow a one million-dollar lifetime limit for gifting property without attracting any gift tax. However, there is a rider that the value of the gift must not exceed twelve thousand dollars to any one person during a single calendar year. Estate tax exemption is set to rise further to $3.5 million in 2009 and stands to be repealed in 2010, which will be a year free from estate taxes. Thereafter, in 2011, the Congress is expected to confirm a full repeal of estate taxes failing which, the old estate tax structure would return with an exemption limit of $1 million.

There is a supplementary provision to estate tax that is known as Marital Deduction. This allows one spouse to leave any amount of property at death to a remaining spouse without creating any estate tax liability. This provision is applicable only if the remaining spouse is a US citizen. If not, then the benefit of marital deduction can be availed only if the property of the deceased spouse is left in a QDOT or qualified domestic trust. This position has been effective since the passing of the Technical and Miscellaneous Revenue Act (TAMRA) in 1988. Among other requirements, a qualified domestic trust needs to have at least one US trustee who is citizen of the United States or is a domestic corporation. If the value of the assets of the deceased exceeds $2 million, the QDOT needs to be a US bank.

In order to avoid soaking of a substantial portion of ones assets in estate taxes, and to let a greater share be available for the benefit of loved ones, people form bypass or family trusts. These are excellent means to lower estate taxes. Such trusts can have a character of a lifetime trust or a testamentary trust. In a lifetime trust, the property is passed on to the trust either during the lifetime of the grantor or owner of the property. In a testamentary, trust the property passes on to the trust through a will after the grantors demise.

The trust is a separate legal entity that enjoys the status of an owner. The property it holds is not recognized as part of the estate of the grantor. No estate tax can be imposed on the grantors death as the owner i.e. the trust still survives. The trust property is managed by trustees for the benefit of designated beneficiaries.

When a married couple forms a bypass trust as part of their estate plan, each leaves property up to their estate tax exemption limit (currently $2 million) to the trust. On the first death, the rest of the property of the deceased can pass on to the surviving spouse under marital deduction without paying any estate tax. The assets in the bypass trust can be made available to the surviving spouse for upkeep, health and other needs. The survivor may even be authorized to draw a certain amount of the principal every year. On the death of the surviving spouse, the trust assets would pass on to beneficiaries named in the trust deed without attracting any tax. This is because the trust was created with assets within estate tax exemption limits to which the creator of the trust was entitled. The assets of the last to die spouse would be taxed subject to the exemption limit of $2 million.

This way, the whole estate (of both the spouses) gets the additional exemption benefit of $2million of the first to die spouse also which leaves more money for their surviving children/heirs/beneficiaries.

It should be noted that if the first to die spouse does not create a bypass trust and just lets the whole property pass on to the surviving spouse through marital deduction, his/her entitlement for the $2million estate tax exemption would simply fizzle away. Fewer assets would pass on to loved ones after the death of the second spouse in this case.

37 months to 21.12.2012. What the Mayan Council Of Elders are saying about things. Disclaimer: Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense. – Buddha But ask yourself: Does the world we have right now make any sense??? Drunvalo Melchizedek clips borrowed from his talk ‘The Maya Of Eternal Time’ available to watch in full here on youtube. Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the …