17.9.4.11. 20200325 – XSTRA’s COVID19 Business Continuity Plan

25th March 2020

INTRODUCTION

• As a provider of Telecommunications and IT infrastructure services, XSTRA is an Essential Business and we will operate as normal at this stage
• Our Customers are our primary concern at this time. Helping them through this period is our company-wide assignment
• XSTRA is already well prepared for this event
• Coronavirus is a virus spreading human to human and first identified in China
• COVID-19 is the official name for the virus and Is now officially a pandemic
• Here is a link to track the spread: http://covid19.opentext.com and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMre6IAAAiU
• Governments will attempt to control the spread of the virus and this is likely to include the shut down of many business centers, towns, and cities
• We don’t want to be alarmist unnecessarily at this stage, however, please start to think about what items you might most need in the event policies are passed that limit your movement
• Each and every person’s health at XSTRA is our primary concern, so if anyone has any suggestions or concerns please post in Microsoft Teams chat or email lv@xstragroup.com if you have any private matters
• XSTRA has invested in private 10 Gbps dark fibers linking all of our datacenters and racks. This investment protects our Customer’s operations
• XSTRA’s network design and diversification of resources and resource locations are all part of our obsession with redundancy
  

OUR BUSINESS CONTINUITY PLAN AT XSTRA
XSTRA supports many companies globally and we need to treat the very real possibility that we will not be operating “as usual” sometime in the near future.
As you know the virus is spreading. We will be erring on the side of caution. We want to be ahead of any announcement for mandatory quarantine. Luckily, all of us can effectively work from home, and we do, as we have private-cloud virtual desktops and phone systems.

XSTRA has 2 teams based in Australia and the Philippines.

Australia Team Details

• From 7 pm on the 13th of March 2020, all staff that normally travel to work on public transport are to work from home until further notice
• For all other staff, the requirement to work from home is optional at this stage
• Those working from home must take a company emergency smartphone home with them. This smartphone is been pre-configured to connect to our cloud-based PBX using BRIA. Please ensure you have this phone turned on at all times while working and have it dialed in to the conference room 1500. This will provide a “just in time” pen channel for communications in real-time.
• Grid-Failure Contingency : In the event that the power grid suffers or anything that would prevent you from working from home, please head to our safe-zone contingency where we have reserved space at a pre-booked Tier 3 data center with full power and IP-Transit redundancy. This facility is already connected to all of our racks in NextDC B1 and NextDC B2 via XSTRA’s own leased 10 Gigabit dedicated dark fibers from Vocus and NextDC.
  

Philippines Team Details

• All staff are to work from home. I have spoken with Dan this morning about him and Ron Ron with Dan taking responsibility for his and Ron Ron’s approach
• All staff are to ensure they are dialed into conference room 1500 using their home-based Yealink or Snom handsets.
  

SERVICES TO CUSTOMERS
As XSTRA has prepared in advance and held many practice drills for this scenario, we are in a good position to provide all Customers with the same level of oversight and support of their IT & Communications systems. There will be no impact on Customers as we migrate to a “work from home” policy.

If Customers would like to migrate their IT & Communications workloads into our XCLOUD (private-cloud) to enable their staff to work from any device, anywhere, then please call 1300 555 920 and talk to Sales.

XSTRA’s DATACENTER ASSETS – where Customer data lives

• Data Center 1 (NextDC B1) – Tier 3
• Data Center 2 (NextDC B2) – Tier 4
• Data Center 3 (XSTRA/ECN) – Tier 2
• Data Center 4 (Digital Sense) – Tier 3
• Sydney – Data Center (Equinix) on standby – Tier 4
• Melbourne – Data Center (NextDC M2) on standby – Tier 4
• USA/Los Angeles Data Center – (CALPOP) contact Darrell Benvenuto – Tier 3
  

BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON XSTRA THAT COULD BE USEFUL FOR OUR CUSTOMERS BUILDING THEIR OWN BUSINESS CONTINUITY PLANS

• Founder & CEO: Lyndon Vincent
  • Email: LV@xstragroup.com
  • Global Extension : 2018
  • Australian Mobile : +61 400 596 366 or Local: 0400 596 366
• Global Phone Numbers
  • Australia
    • +61 7 3123 4111 or Local: 1300 555 920 – (I)
  • Hong Kong
    • +852 5808 3186 – (I)
  • New Zealand
    • +64 9951 8015 – (I)
  • South Africa
    • +27 1 0500 8808 – (I)
  • UK
    • +44 20 3318 3448 – (I)
  • USA
    • +1 213 394 2699 – (I)
• Professional Indemnity Cover/Insurer:
  • DUAL Australia (PH: 1300 769 772)
  • Policy Number: P-IT/0/255532/19/K-9
  • Underwriter : Lloyd’s of London
• Link to XSTRA’s Disaster Recovery Plan Disaster Recovery Plan