Alaska Railroad Corporation Information Technology Performance Audit
The ARRC is soliciting proposals to perform a Performance Audit of the Information
Technology (IT) functions at ARRC and based on the findings from tasks 1, 2 and 3
determine the state of ARRCs Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery (BCDR)
Plans. After successful completion of the tasks 1, 2 and 3 and review and approval by
ARRC the vendor maybe asked to proceed with task 4. The audit should include:
1. SYSTEMS BASELINE
What is the condition of ARRCs core information technology function today? --
To this end, develop an inventory of the current state of business systems,
critical and otherwise, and the associated process, tools, technology, methods,
and people required to ensure the proper operation of the system.
2. RECOMMENDATION FOR FUTURE
What should ARRCs core information technology function look like in the future?
Based on the inventory developed in the system baseline and determine
whether the hardware and software are adequate, integrated, and
optimized to fully support ARRCs internal and external customers data
needs.
o Include an assessment of proposed releases, consolidations and
upgrades to ensure that the ARRC systems will retain their
effectiveness for users to meet their business goals.
Review ARRCs and more specifically ARRCs strategic planning process
related to information technology; are we determining the future of the
corporations systems and upgrade needs correctly?
Evaluate the wisdom of outsourcing certain functions as a result of the
recommendations as a result of your answer to the above bullets.
3. WORK MANAGEMENT, PRIORITIZATION & STAFFING
Review of current operating practices for Information Technology which are in
place to recommend optimal methodologies to:
a) Receive and process work requests
b) Review process for determining priorities of work based on the strategic
planning process and the criticality of the system
c) Scenario analysis to measure the impact of alternatives on established
corporate goals
d) Evaluate the departments criteria for use of external contractors
e) Staffing strategy as a function of deployed and planned technology
platforms
4. BUSINESS CONTINUITY & DISASTER RECOVERY
As it pertains to information technology, ARRC business continuity requires the
development of plan for ensuring high availability while maintaining a 24 hour-by-
7 day a week operation philosophy for business critical systems. Regardless of
the outage nature, critical business operations and certain segments of our
application set and enterprise infrastructure must be addressed to maintain that
business. The disaster recovery need is based on the assumption that there will
be events that will cause outages. Based on the business need, recovery of
information technology services will require a prioritized plan that will need to be
executed as quickly as possible given the priority dictated by business
requirements.
