Wall Street West (WSW) is a $40 million dollar enterprise whose main funding consisted of a $15 million U.S. Department of Labor WIRED (Workforce Innovation in Economic Development) grant and more than $25 million in federal, state, and private investments. WSW is a not-for-profit partnership comprised of over two dozen Northeastern Pennsylvania regional and Pennsylvania state-wide economic development agencies. In addition, the organization included private sector technology investment groups, workforce development organizations, area educational and research institutions, and other experts all having a stake in the project (Wall Street, 2008). WSW resides in the Pocono Mountains of Northeastern Pennsylvania which has been long known as the “honeymoon capital of the world.” The Poconos are advertised as a romantic vacation getaway boasting natural scenic beauty, 150 lakes, resorts, and quaint, historic towns (Pocono Mountains, 2008; Goldstein, 2007). While the scenery and amenities remain, there has been a significant movement among politicians and business leaders to add to the current offerings of the Poconos Mountains. The additional contribution is to become the principal back-up center for New York City’s financial services industry by providing real-time replication and data disaster recovery for the critical financial operations of that industry in the event of a wide-scale system failure (Wall Street, 2008). The Wall Street West System There are two main initiatives of Wall Street West. The first is to provide business continuity services to New York City’s financial services industry by implementing a fully functional fiber optic network infrastructure connecting Lower Manhattan with Northeastern Pennsylvania. Wall Street West enabled back office functions for the financial services industry located in New York City in Northeastern Pennsylvania. The project empowered redundant, instantaneous data transmission between the two areas and, in addition, provides business continuity, recovery, and data replication for the New York City financial services industry. The second initiative is to support education in area colleges and universities through grants, other support services, and to promote workforce education and development in the region. Wall Street West incorporates longterm strategic plans to prime workers for high-skill, high-wage career pathways and to meet the future employee competencies needed in the financial sector and related information technology arena. In this regard, Wall Street studied which skills were required by financial companies, reviewed the area’s worker training programs, appraised area college and university curriculums, and identified areas that needed to be improved (Wall Street, 2008). This paper concentrates on the first initiative discussed above and the nucleus of the Wall Street West project - the fiber optic network - the backbone of the Wall Street West project. Wall Street West utilizes synchronous data replication which replicates data at a remote site; in this case, Northeastern Pennsylvania.

The Wall Street West’s Strategic Advantage One of the main reasons Northeastern Pennsylvania was chosen as the business continuity site was the strategic location of the area. First and foremost, the nine counties of Northeastern Pennsylvania region fall within the 125-mile limit (in each direction) required for synchronous signal transmission, as discussed above, making the Wall Street West region strategically located to New York City. Secondly, the region was in compliance with all of the Federal Regulatory Agency recommendations regarding geographical diversity between the primary site of New York City and the back-up site Wall Street West. Listed below are the long-standing principles of business continuity planning that WSW is in conformity with: Review of Business Information Systems – June 2014 Volume 18, Number 1 Copyright by author(s); CC-BY 20 The Clute Institute 

1. A separate transportation system from New York City. 

2. A separate telecommunications system from New York City. 

3. A separate electric power grid from New York City. 

4. A separate watershed from New York City. 

5. A separate nuclear impulse from New York City (Wall Street, 2008). 

Lastly, a developing trend in the last twenty years has seen many firms from larger metropolitan areas in the financial services and insurance industry established divisions of their operations in the WSW region. Currently, over 25,000 residents work in these industries in Northeastern Pennsylvania (Northeast Pennsylvania). The primary reason for these moves was the same benefits WSW had to offer in business continuity services. Listed below is a summary of the unique benefits of the WSW region: 

1. centrally located with easy access to NYC, Philadelphia, and Washington DC 

2. well-developed telecommunications infrastructure 

3. well-educated workforce 

4. affordable energy costs

5. substantial tax incentives for businesses 

6. wide availability of open commercial sites and industrial parks 

7. efficient workforce with lower operating costs than major cities (Wall Street, 2008)

Read the Mark and Robson (2014) and investigate the attributes of Wall Street West and evaluate the effectiveness in satisfying each criterion.