Dana French (1958-) is a prominent American computer scientist who is the Chief Executive Officer of several U.S. Corporations, (See External Links) and focuses his work primarily in the field of business continuity. He is credited with pioneering a methodology for computer system administration based on business continuity concepts, and has published extensively on the subject (See Sources for published works).

French is one of the best-known entrepreneurs in the field of business continuity. Although his concepts and practices are widely accepted, they are not widely implemented.  The difference between acceptance and implementation has been attributed to a industry resistance to change, and regulatory restrictions imposed by Sarbanes Oxley legislation.

French currently serves as chief executive officer of TriParadigm LLC, a Texas USA Corporation, and as President of Mt Xia Inc., another Texas USA corporation.  He also owns and operates several other businesses all related to business continuity and providing services such as colocation, server hosting, and web hosting services (See External Links).

Early Life

French was born in Stillwater, Oklahoma and grew up in Piedmont, Oklahoma, a small farming community in central Oklahoma.  His family was middle class; his father was an insurance salesman and home builder, his mother was a bookkeeper with several businesses in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area. He has one younger brother.

As a boy growing up in a rural area, French spent much of his time engaged in outdoor activities, one of which included hang-gliding.  He began hang-gliding at the age of 16 and was one of the first participants of this sport in the state of Oklahoma. As a boy scout, he attained the rank of Eagle Scout.

French states that he has worked from the time he was 6 years old, beginning by mowing lawns with a reel-type push lawn mower.  He has worked in a wide variety of industries including farming, aviation, petro-chemical, communications, health care, engineering, and several others.

While attending the University of Oklahoma as a full time student, French also worked five jobs simultaneously for a period of a year.  His schedule during this time began at 4:00 am to deliver newspapers for the Daily Oklahoman.  He then attended classes at the University of Oklahoma from 7:00 am until noon studying Zoology and Chemical Engineering. From 1:00 PM in the afternoon until 5:00 PM, French worked for a chemical engineering company as a computer programmer. On Tuesday and Thursday evenings, from 7:00 PM until 10:00 PM, French worked for the Zoology department in their media and study room as a tutor and attendant. On Friday and Saturday evenings he worked for a company called "Party Pics" as a photographer and would go to various events around the campus taking pictures. On Sundays and Wednesdays (skipping classes on Wednesdays) French worked for the "Wonder Bread" company as a "pull-up" route driver on the regular drivers day off.

French Graduated from the University of Oklahoma in 1983 with a B.S. Degree in Zoology.

Mt Xia Inc.

As a consulting analyst working with numerous companies, French recognized the need for a standardized mechanism for implementing business continuity concepts and methodologies.  Over a period of 15 years, he began developing a step-by-step methodology for the implementation of business continuity that could be utilized in any industry.  The methodology views system and application administration from an executive level business function perspective rather than from a system or application management point of view.

TriParadigm LLC

After developing and implementing his business continuity methodology as a manual process, French created a data center appliance called "vLPAR" which incorporates this methodology into an automated product.  He then created TriParadigm LLC as an international marketing company to promote this product.

Korn Shell Scripting

French is a noted authority on the subject of Korn Shell Scripting and operates the World Wide Web's largest repository of Korn Shell scripts and script libraries.  The most well known of his script libraries is Shell Curses, which is a library of functions providing terminal control within shell scripts.

Another well known shell script utility authored by French is kshSQL, which is a Korn Shell script implementation of a complete relational database management system.

Recognition

French is credited with coining the information technology industry term "enterprise wide unique".

French provides expert analysis to news organizations related to the activities of corporations attempting to recover normal business functions after large disaster events.  These news organizations include print media, radio, and television.

References

Mr French referenced as Disaster Recovery Expert] via Mt Xia Inc.
Mr French's Business Continuity Methodology referenced here via Mt Xia Inc.
Mr French's Disaster Recovery Methodology referenced here via Mt Xia Inc.
* [http://searchdisasterrecovery.stage.techtarget.com/tip/1,289483,sid190_gci1349944,00.html Mr French's Disaster Recovery Plan Template] is referenced here via Mt Xia Inc.
* [http://www.froola.com/I/S/ISO_standards__page1 ISO reference of Business Continuity Methodology developed by Dana French at Mt Xia]
* [http://www-304.ibm.com/jct09002c/gsdod/solutiondetails.do?&solution=34938&lc=en IBM Reference of Business Continuity product developed by Dana French at TriParadigm]
* [http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/aix/library/au-enterprise_wide/index.html Explanation of Enterprise Wide Unique by Dana French]
* [http://www.jars.com/websites/documents/resource.php/39255 Naming Standards for Business Continuity] by Dana French
* [http://librenix.com/?inode=12675 AIX Disaster Recovery] by Dana French
* [http://redhat.at/node/459  Disaster Recovery at Redhat] by Dana French
* [http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS3517934566.html Linux Devices] by Dana French
* [http://freshmeat.net/projects/kshsql/ kshSQL 3rd Party Project at freshmeat] Original author of kshSQL is Dana French
* [http://www.shelldorado.com/links/ Shell Scripting]
* [http://www.webmin.com/developers.html Webmin]
* The Korn Shell Web by Dana French is referenced by [http://www.shelldorado.com/links/index.html Heiner's Shelldorado]
* Reference to [http://cfaj.freeshell.org/shell/assistance.shtml Dana French's Korn Shell Scripts] by Chris F. A. Johnson, Author of the book [http://members.torfree.net/chris/books/cfaj/ssr.html Shell Scripting Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach]
* Reference to [http://www.ugu.com/sui/ugu/show?SEARCH=shell+tutorial Dana French's KshWeb by the Unix Guru Universe] see: kshWeb - korn shell utilities
* Reference to [http://www.softpanorama.org/Scripting/Shellorama/shell_scripts_collections.shtml Dana French's kshWeb by Softpanorama] see: kshWeb - Scripts, Tools and Utilities]
* Reference to [http://www.herring.org/techie.html Dana French's kshWeb by Techie Treks] see: kshWeb Home of all things Korn Shell

External Links

* [http://www.triparadigm.com Triparadigm, LLC], President and CEO
* [http://www.mtxia.com Mt Xia Inc.], President, Business Continuity Consulting Services
* [http://www.mtknox.com Mt Knox], President, Small business Data Center Facilities provider
* [http://www.ridmail.com Ridmail], Owner / Founder, Email Services Provider
* [http://www.siteox.com Site Ox], Owner / Founder, Web Site Services Provider
* [http://www.mtxunil.com Mt Xunil], Owner / Founder, Web Site Services Provider
* [http://www.gazunk.com Gazunk!], Owner / Founder, Writers Collaboration, Idea Sharing, and Authors Source
* [http://www.vlpar.com vLPAR Data Center Automation Appliance] from TriParadigm LLC
* [http://www.bladelogic.com/partners/data-center-alliance-program.php TriParadigm's Data Center Automation Partner BMC]
* [http://www.homesquatter.com Home Squatter], Home Foreclosure avoidance web site resourced by Dana French

Sources

* AIX Update Journal: Apr 2005: [http://www.mtxia.com/js/Documentation/article01.doc Successful Business Continuity: User Names and Groups]
* AIX Update Journal: May 2005: [http://www.mtxia.com/js/Documentation/article02.doc Successful Business Continuity: Naming Structures]
* AIX Update Journal: Nov 2005: [http://www.mtxia.com/js/Documentation/article03.doc Successful Business Continuity: Volume Names]
* AIX Update Journal: Apr 2006: [http://www.mtxia.com/js/Documentation/article04.doc Successful Business Continuity: Websphere MQ]
* AIX Update Journal: Aug 2006: [http://www.mtxia.com/js/Documentation/article05.doc Successful Business Continuity: Automated Documentation]
* AIX Update Journal: Dec 2006: [http://www.mtxia.com/js/Documentation/virtual01.pdf Virtualization Standards for Business Continuity: Part 1]
* AIX Update Journal: Feb 2007: [http://www.mtxia.com/js/Documentation/virtual02.pdf Virtualization Standards for Business Continuity: Part 2]
* AIX Update Journal: Mar 2007: [http://www.mtxia.com/js/Documentation/virtual03.pdf Virtualization Standards for Business Continuity: Part 3]
* AIX Update Journal: May 2007: [http://www.mtxia.com/js/Documentation/virtual04.pdf Virtualization Standards for Business Continuity: Part 4]
* AIX Update Journal: Aug 2007: [http://www.mtxia.com/js/Documentation/virtual05.pdf Virtualization Standards for Business Continuity: Part 5]
* AIX Update Journal: Sep 2007: [http://www.mtxia.com/js/Documentation/virtual06.pdf Virtualization Standards for Business Continuity: Part 6]
* AIX Update Journal: Nov 2007: [http://www.mtxia.com/js/Documentation/virtual07.pdf Virtualization Standards for Business Continuity: Part 7]
* AIX Update Journal: Feb 2008: [http://www.mtxia.com/js/Documentation/virtual08.pdf Virtualization Standards for Business Continuity: Part 8]
* AIX Update Journal: Mar 2008: [http://www.mtxia.com/js/Documentation/virtual09.pdf Virtualization Standards for Business Continuity: Part 9]
* AIX Update Journal: unpublished: [http://www.mtxia.com/js/Documentation/virtual10.pdf Virtualization Standards for Business Continuity: Part 10]
* IBM Developerworks: Sep 2007: [http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/aix/library/au-aixrecovery/ AIX disaster recovery]
* IBM Developerworks: Mar 2008: [http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/aix/library/au-shellcurses/ Shell Curses Function Library]
* IBM Developerworks: Sep 2008: [http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/aix/library/au-korn93/ KornShell 93 Auditing]
* IBM Developerworks: Nov 2008: [http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/aix/library/au-name_standards/index.html Naming Standards for Business Continuity]
* IBM Developerworks: Jan 2009: [http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/aix/library/au-enterprise_wide/ Enterprise Wide Unique Identifiers for Business Continuity]
* [http://www-304.ibm.com/jct09002c/gsdod/solutiondetails.do?&solution=34938&lc=en IBM Reference of Business Continuity product developed by Dana French at TriParadigm]
* [http://www.cbttape.org/xephon/xephona/aix0511.pdf Published Business Continuity Article]
* [http://www.cbttape.org/xephon/xephona/aix0505.pdf Published Business Continuity Article]
* [http://shunix.sourceforge.net/ shunix - Shell Script Unix Utilities]
* [http://www.tvwiki.tv/wiki/Dana_French TV Wiki]
* [http://www.froola.com/I/S/ISO_standards__page1 ISO reference of Business Continuity Methodology developed by Dana French at Mt Xia]