Disaster Recovery & BCP

Digital River, Inc. has both a Business Continuity Program and Disaster Recovery Program to effectively respond to potentially disruptive events for its people, facility and technology. Business Continuity is defined as 'The planning to ensure the safety of its people, facilities and technology that allows the business to function. Disaster Recovery is defined as "The recovery of technology that supports business capabilities". A disaster recovery plan (DRP) is a documented process or set of procedures to recover and protect a business IT infrastructure in the event of a disaster.

Our Commerce runs actively and concurrently within three different regions using DNS geographic load balancing. We replicate data real-time and have proactive monitoring in place to alert us to any issues with replication. If there was a replication issue, we are notified, and immediate action is taken. At most, a five-minute interval/interruption would occur. Disaster recovery is built into the architectural design of a platform.

Availability strategy includes some platforms components being available as active-active across regional boundaries, as well as, some platform components being available active passive, requiring intervention to switch over in the event of an issue.

We duplicate important data across regions in addition to conventional backups and we employ ”inactive” environments to release code without impact.

Our Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity plans leverage several industry standards including: global standards ISO/IEC 24762 and ISO/IEC 27035.

We have a standard monthly maintenance window, where we do maintenance on platforms. During the monthly maintenance, depending on the maintenance needed, we will shift traffic between regions to perform maintenance on a single region without client impact.

Crisis Communications Team Members and Roles

The crisis communications team is charged with analyzing the situation, gathering facts and crafting an appropriate communications course of action that minimizes potential damage to the company. While some of the members of the crisis communications team will vary based on the crisis, there are core roles that will almost always be required:

Crisis Communications Manager

As the primary driver of the team, this person identifies the appropriate team members as the crisis emerges and gathers the team to take action. This person works with the others at Digital River who possess the most direct knowledge of the crisis and are responsible for the recommendations on communication strategy, including the messaging. This person also takes the lead in communicating with and updating senior leadership during the duration of the crisis.

Crisis Manager

The crisis manager will be responsible for determining which incidents are crisis events. When we have crisis’s that are commerce impacting, the Crisis Manager will be responsible for informing the appropriate account owners and the corporate communications team as necessary to send client communications as required. This role will message if there is a major commerce impacting event. This role will also start a conference bridge for major events to provide updates to the corporate communications team along with senior leadership.

Lead Spokesperson

The primary spokesperson’s role is to communicate clearly and succinctly the details of the crisis situation. This person may, on select occasions, be supported by additional spokespeople who possess the most direct knowledge of the crisis or who are key contacts for specific audiences. In a significant crisis, the company’s CEO will take the lead in conveying the leadership response to demonstrate Digital River has control of the situation.

Subject Matter Expert(s)

The subject matter expert(s) will work closely with the crisis communications manager to provide the necessary details and context in order for the crisis communications team to develop and execute the communication strategy and tactics. Subject matter experts are the individuals within Digital River who are most familiar with the topic at hand. These individuals will vary based on the situation and often times there could be more than one subject matter expert during a crisis situation.

Legal Representation

In many cases, a legal assessment of the situation will be required or helpful. When appropriate and/or necessary, legal will have input into and review the crisis communications strategy and messages.