Disasters such as fire, flood, equipment theft or failure are not thoughts we, as managers, want to dwell on.  What would happen if our servers were stolen or failed, how would we work if our office was flooded or damaged by fire?
 
Although not regular occurrences for most businesses disasters in some form or other are generally experienced by businesses.  It is estimated that approximately 30% of all businesses that have a major fire go out of business within a year and 70% fail within five years (Home Office Computing Magazine).  In addition 93% that lost computer systems for 10 days or more were bankrupt within one year (National Archives & Records Administration in Washington).
 
The key to not becoming a statistic is planning more specifically a disaster recovery plan.
 
A plan can include:

• Automatic failover systems for vital systems
• Backup of data and rotation of media
• Restoration planning and testing
• Spare equipment
• Systems of working to ensure paperwork is recoverable
• The physical location of equipment
• Workspace if your office is not usable
• Other solutions

 
Failover systems can allow your vital servers and other equipment to immediately and automatically be replaced should they fail.  These types of systems are vital if your company cannot withstand seconds or minutes of system downtime.
 
Backups of data and servers are vital.  The questions to ask are is all the required data backed up, how quickly can your data and servers be restored, are the backups kept off site and are they regularly tested?  The type of backup, its hardware and its software is also important these can affect the timing of restoration, often combinations can be used at low cost to ensure maximum speed and protection.
 
Spare equipment either in the form of a failover system or for restoration to should the original fail are often vital, the equipment need not always be as up-to-date as your current equipment as long as you can still work whilst the original is fixed or replacement equipment is purchased.
 
Computer systems are not the only losses, paper is often the difficult to replace.  Systems can be in place to ensure that all paperwork is recoverable should it be destroyed.  These systems need not take much time and can lead to other benefits such as paperless or more home working.
 
Important hardware is often put out of the way such as in a basement but unfortunately some locations are more prone than others to disaster.   The ground floor or below ground can be prone to flooding as can areas near or under water tanks and toilets, these considerations are important to consider.
 
Importantly fire and flood can often mean that the office itself is unusable.  Plans for alternative locations or home working can be made.
 
Other important issues such as telephone lines and insurance are important.
 
We can provide telephone services that divert to alternative numbers if they are unavailable, assistance with insurance planning, home working solutions, location planning of important systems even off site locations, spare equipment can be provided by us for immediate installation on failure, backup & failover selection and implementation advice can be provided.
 
For all your disaster recovery needs in Devon & Cornwall contact us on 0845 22 33 078