Why do we need disaster recovery plans and solutions?

This week, I visited a prospective client who was ready to invest in disaster recovery systems. They have an office in Brisbane, and an office in Christchurch. Here is the story as it was told to me...

"We were lucky in Christchurch, and have had no real news to report from an IT perspective. But, it made our management team think about disaster recovery planning – especially after what happened to us in Brisbane.

We knew the rain was coming, so we asked the branch manager to take home the back-up tapes and the server. Unfortunately, having an employee mentality rather than a business owner mentality, the branch manager decided the server was too much effort, and basically "she'll be right mate." So, he just grabbed the most recent backup tape and took that home.

Of course, the rain came and washed putrid mud through the whole office. Before any of our staff could attend the site, the authorities had removed everything that had come in contact with the putrid water and mud, so all of our IT equipment was gone, never to be seen again. Including the most recent backup tape that was still in the device.

It took 12 days to get the tape we had taken off-site restored to a new server, and – even then – we had lost two days of transactions and data changes. It was a nightmare..."

This company was really lucky – the odds of having a two-day old tape actually work are very low. But, there will still be files that failed to back-up that are lost, and they won't know what these are until the day they need them. Additionally, any corrupted files (also quite common) will not be apparent until the day they try to use them. Despite this, they are still the lucky ones, because, unlike many businesses, they got most of their data and IP back.

Now, let's consider the modern alternative...

This company could now have any changes to data streamed live via an ADSL connection to data centres in Brisbane and Sydney, where the image of their servers are constantly on standby. So, at the point where they powered down the Brisbane office in anticipation of the floods hitting, they could have switched to their virtual server in the data centre with up-to-the-minute data live and available for use. This would have meant downtime of only one to two hours, zero lost data, and minimal cost to the business – if any.

There are many back-up and disaster recovery solutions available on the market today. Many of them look good at surface level, but when you test them in earnest they fall short of expectations. No matter how large or small your business, you must invest in the protection and recovery of your data. Please seek advice and make sure the people you're dealing with take your recovery needs seriously. There are just too many poorly thought through back-up solutions in small businesses that will not see you through to a successful recovery.

Even if you have a good back-up you still need a sound recovery plan. Often the people we need most for a recovery are the ones who have family and friends in need and the humanitarian assistance needs to come before business recovery. So planning to make use of external resources can be a big risk reducer in the equation as well.

David Markus is the founder of Combo - the IT services company that ensures IT is never an impediment to growth.