“Be Prepared”

AGIIS Update

“Be Prepared”

By Josh Wall, AgGateway AGIIS Product Manager

The motto “Be Prepared” is one that many of us heard growing up, especially if you belonged to the Boy Scouts of America organization. Someone once asked Baden-Powell, the founder of Scouting, “Be prepared for what?” His response was, “Any old thing”. But he then went on to say, “The Scout motto means that you were always in a state of readiness in mind and body to do your duty and face danger, if necessary, to help others.”

AgGateway takes the same “Be Prepared” approach when it comes to its valuable Ag Industry Identification System (AGIIS), which is used each day by many organizations as a critical resource for industry identifiers and associated data. Since the inception of AGIIS, there has been an established disaster recovery (DR) plan in place, just in case the unexpected happens. Each year DXC, the company that hosts and manages AGIIS, performs a DR exercise to ensure the plan that is documented will work if and when a real disaster occurs. This year AgGateway’s DR exercise will occur 7-10 September. (The exercise will not interfere in any way with the normal operations of AGIIS during this time.)

Importantly, AgGateway moved AGIIS in June to DXC’s Tulsa, Oklahoma, Data Center. That change has resulted in the creation of a new disaster recovery plan that reflects the new environment, as well as a new failover location in Colorado Springs, Colo. The disaster recovery plan defines the processes and procedures required to perform recovery of infrastructure, services, hardware, applications and data in a structured, pre-determined way as prioritized by AgGateway. This recovery sequence would kick off upon a formal declaration of disaster by AgGateway. The plan provides the decision-making process and identifies the processes and procedures that will be employed in the event of an interruption.

During this year’s exercise, the DXC team will execute the plan step-by-step, and will document any changes or deviations that may occur. Once the system has been recovered, it will be turned over to the AgGateway Member Services team for user acceptance testing. Member Services will execute a test script of documented AGIIS functionality and scenarios to ensure the system is working properly. When the test is complete, the DXC team will update the disaster recovery plan with any changes that were discovered, and provide updated information back to the AgGateway staff.

We’re pleased to share this information with AgGateway members and AGIIS subscribers to demonstrate that AgGateway is serious about “being prepared” if the unexpected happens. If you have questions about the AGIIS Disaster Recovery Plan or the annual exercise, contact Member Services at Member.Services@AgGateway.org or +1 (866) 251-8618.