* Version 3 of valuable tool
Some years ago, I wrote about my friends and colleagues Michael Miora and Stephen Cobb’s incident management planning and training program, then called IMCD. Now Michael and Stephen Cobb’s brother, Michael Cobb, have updated the product and reduced the price all the way down to $99 per copy (10% of the original price). They have renamed this new version 3 as “IMCD Business Backup” to make it clearer that the software is an actual preparation and recovery tool, not just a planning tool.
Some years ago, I wrote about my friends and colleagues Michael Miora and Stephen Cobb’s incident management planning and training program, then called IMCD. Now Michael and Stephen Cobb’s brother, Michael Cobb, have updated the product and reduced the price all the way down to $99 per copy (10% of the original price). They have renamed this new version 3 as “IMCD Business Backup” to make it clearer that the software is an actual preparation and recovery tool, not just a planning tool.
I spoke with Michael about the new version in early July. He explained that most of the functionality that is being highlighted in v3 actually existed in the previous versions but was not obvious to most users. In response to the perceived need, ContingenZ experts worked on bringing these aspects of the product to light and making them easier to use. The main improvement is to make it clear to users that IMCD Business Backup can help them prepare and maintain thorough documentation that will be invaluable in responding to business interruptions quickly and effectively.
IMCD Business Backup does not replace traditional backup programs; it augments them by offering a different way of storing identified important business information so the information is available even before systems are replaced, restored and reconfigured. Specifically, the program prompts the user to enter information about the business and to provide specific data. Data entry can be via keyboard, copy/paste, import (for Microsoft Access aficionados) and via inclusion of PDF files generated by other programs. The company even provides templates for use in importing information on its Web site.
The business information provided to IMCD helps the product categorize and prioritize data. IMCD then generates PDF files containing the key information in a usable, easily sharable format: PDF files. These files are small enough, even for large organizations, to fit on inexpensive (and appropriately secured) thumb drives, to be e-mailed easily to team members, to be stored (securely) on handheld computers, or to be put on Web sites (behind good security).
These PDFs are the “anytime, anywhere, on any computer” elements of a good business-continuity plan. They are universal, readable by any computer, via the Web and on most handhelds. The documentation points out that IMCD Business Backup provides many valuable features that support critical business needs:
• Your business information anywhere, anytime on any computer
– Lists of customers, employees, vendors, suppliers, others
– Core accounting information
– Automatically stores data safely
– Send it by e-mail, put it on handhelds or store it on flash drives
– Share it with critical personnel
• Know who will need what information and when they will need it:
– Get it to them quickly and easily
– Should something bad happen, know who needs which information
– When they will need it and what they will do with it
– Get the information to them quickly, easily and inexpensively
• Build a business disaster recovery plan automatically
– Built-in guided analysis does it, while you enter your information
– Even tells you what you need that you don’t yet have
• Also a Full Document Control Center
– Document your business operations and time criticalities easily and methodically, guided by IMCD, and include it with your other information
– Collect a general inventory of your equipment (computers, software and other infrastructure elements). Learn and control how your business uses and depends upon your equipment
– Link backups to people
– Automatically link people to business functions
– Let IMCD maintain latest version
– Gap analysis: What do you need that you don’t yet have?
I went through the new version myself and was pleased with the result. I liked the availability of the generated reports within the product window.
The preview edition, available through download, is identical to the full, licensed version except for functional limitations:
• The size of the database is limited to 25 key personnel, six network devices, and 25 workstations.
• The program can be used only 25 times before it is completely disabled.
• The preview version can generate only PDF output and includes a watermark on every page indicating that the reports are for evaluation only.
• The preview edition cannot be activated or registered: It must be uninstalled prior to installation of the licensed version.
Buyers of IMCD Business Backup receive a boxed version of the software which can generate Word, Excel, TXT, and HTML in addition to PDF files.
Good stuff.
[Disclaimer: I have no financial relationship whatever with ContingenZ except that Michael Miora is a valued adjunct professor of Information Assurance in the Norwich University MSIA program and has been instrumental in building our new Master of Science in Business Continuity program.]
