ColoSpace

Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery planning seems to ebb and flow with both economic cycles and the proximity of the most recent local disaster. With the slow economy and the overexposure by the 24 hour cable news channels to today’s world crises, many of us have tuned out the need to plan for major disruptions in business. Even Hollywood reflects the dilemma of business not planning for basic disruptions. A recent episode in the popular and award-winning TV show “The Office” made the point. In trying to deal with a practice emergency drill, their fearless leader shouts over the mass confusion,  “ I told you to read the procedure manual (all 75 pages of text)”.  We all groan when the fire drill happens on a cold or rainy day, but that practice saves lives and businesses.    

For many people, disaster recovery or business continuity is old news and the assumption is that most businesses have great plans in place.  I recently attended the NEDRIX (New England Disaster Recovery Information Exchange) conference and heard that many businesses and government groups have plans in place but many do not practice or test those plans on a regular basis.  The conference highlighted the advances that have been made in Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery readiness since 9-11 and Katrina within national, state and large firms’ emergency management groups.  

The new planning and simulation/testing software turned the jumbo video screens into a virtual reality world depicting disasters like the California forest fires, an earthquake in Asia and a worldwide contagious disease outbreak.   After the adrenalin rush of seeing these videos and the attendees gave a  sigh of relief that New England has been spared dealing with a major storm during this past hurricane season, the discussion turned to the  crisis of the ice storm of December 2008.  This event impacted tens of thousands locally in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, but for many not directly affected, this was just another crisis on the 24 hour cable news. 

The take away from the conference was most of the government agencies and large firms, especially in regulated industries like healthcare and banking have well documented, well tested plans but many of the small business are not well prepared for disruptions.  It is ironic that many small businesses did not attend the show because of budget or time constraints but they are the firms that need help.  Several small business customers asked about basics, like how to insure that the tape backup gets taken home by the IT guy for “offsite storage”.   Most wanted to know about how to deal with the “less publicized” local “disasters” such as a burst pipe in their building, an operator error that brings down a set of key servers, or a cable cut knocking out their internet for a week.    

It sounds like a broken record, but each conversation around business continuity/disaster recovery starts with creating a plan and practicing/testing the plan.  After practiced, the human resiliency factor kicks when a business is dealing with a real disaster.  Although this seems so obvious, the basics of a sound plan, practice and more practice actually works in the time of critical response. 

ColoSpace is expert in helping customers with their disaster recovery /business continuity planning, data center infrastructure and computer system.  We find that the KISS model is the fastest and most cost effective way of getting started with Business continuity/disaster recovery for businesses large and small, online or brick and mortar, rural or urban.