02
Sat, Nov
2 New Articles

Natural Disasters of 2011: Are You Prepared in 2012?

High Availability / Disaster Recovery
Typography
  • Smaller Small Medium Big Bigger
  • Default Helvetica Segoe Georgia Times

Mother Nature is unpredictable. You need to ask yourself: Are you prepared?

 

Natural disasters pose enormous threats to an organization's business operations, and 2011 will go on record as one of the most disaster-filled years in recent history. The year started with severe blizzard conditions over most of the U.S., which was soon followed by:

 

  • Earthquake and resulting tsunami and nuclear accident in Japan
  • Damaging earthquakes in New Zealand and, quite unusually, along the U.S. East Coast
  • Tornadoes across the U.S.
  • Floods in Australia and the Midwestern and Southeastern U.S.
  • Hurricane Irene, which shut down New York City for a day and resulted in serious flood damage to the Northeastern U.S.
  • Unprecedented worldwide triple-digit heat

According to industry estimates, total weather losses in the U.S. alone came to more than $35 billion before figuring in Hurricane Irene. The Australian floods cost an estimated $5 billion, and the earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand $20 billion. CNN reported that the total cost of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami will top the scales at $309 billion. Can any of us remember a more costly year for disaster recovery? These tragedies serve as a stark reminder that information is often the most irreplaceable part of any business. Mother Nature has proven herself to be unpredictable, and who's to say 2012 won't bring more of the same? You need to ask yourself: Are you prepared?

 

In the wake of shutdowns caused by major earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, or hurricanes, many businesses discover the hard way that they didn't have adequate backup and consequently have lost access to their servers and their data and/or they are not equipped to operate remotely. Large events such as an earthquake, or even a fire, mean that physical access to servers and data can often be delayed by days or weeks...and that assumes the hardware survived the disaster itself.

 

New Zealand and Japan continue to suffer powerful aftershocks to the strong earthquakes that happened earlier in 2011. And for many businesses affected by the nuclear accident caused by Japan's massive earthquake, the ongoing nuclear crisis is preventing them from gaining physical access to their buildings. This situation is causing some businesses to go under simply because they can't get access to their data.

 

Imagine for a moment that your business, and the building that houses it, is destroyed. Everything you have has been crushed by heavy debris, burned in a fire, soaked with floodwaters, water from fire hoses, or rain, and then exposed to the elements, dust, wind, and humidity for days. What sort of shape do you think your IT hardware is going to be in? And what about the data it houses?

 

Be honest. You already know the answer. But the bigger question is, what does this mean for your business? Is there still a business left?

 

According to an AT&T study of 100 corporate firms with revenues of less than $25 million, 20 percent don't have a disaster recovery plan in place. Imagine the number of employees who would lose their jobs and investors who would lose their money. And, of course, the business market share fought so hard for would now be freely available to competitors.

What's Your Disaster Recovery Plan?

Without an effective disaster recovery plan and the technology required to execute on the plan, your business could be shut down until you can restore your data and your systems to get up and running again.

 

You hear the same thing over and over: Most companies thought it would never happen to them.

 

If you don't have a disaster recovery plan and access to your data is business-critical, what are you waiting for? Take immediate action and do these seven things:

 

  1. Put a disaster recovery plan in place for physical operations as well as all business-critical systems and data.
  2. Make your plan fit to the amount of time you can afford to have your systems down (how long can your business survive without access to your data?).
  3. Check your recovery point status (is yesterday's backup tape OK?).
  4. Think about how your staff will need to communicate after a disaster and plan for this (two-way radios, wifi, etc.). When disaster strikes, regular means of communication go down. You should expect that communications will be down for some time and put a plan in place to work around this.
  5. Include an alternate location that your company can operate from, and duplicate your business processes across both sites if possible. Have a plan in place for staff to meet at a set location after a disaster strikes. If your preferred location isn't feasible, have a step 2 and a step 3 location in mind.
  6. Test your plan.
  7. Test your plan again.

 

Once you have your basic plan, complete the process by taking these important steps:

 

Role play. Create totally plausible disaster scenarios that represent actual threats your company might face and see how your employees might react. This could be a fire, an earthquake, a terrorist attack, a blizzard, a tornado, or an outbreak of a viral infection. This makes your employees think about what they have to do when disaster strikes. Review your plan with your teams and then stage a mock event. See how the plan is executed and check the results. What changes might you have to make? What can be improved? It's one thing to stage a disaster and another to measure the results and take action. Encourage your team to be creative in their reactions and responses; ask them for feedback on how they could have done better.

 

Talk to your partners about your disaster recovery plans. Talk with your partners in the supply chain, distributors, channel partners, and key customers about your preparedness and plans. It's a good idea to find out what plans they have in case of an emergency. Open communication helps everything get back online and back in business faster after a disaster strikes.

 

Share what disaster recovery tools and procedures work with others. In times of a crisis, everyone comes through better when everyone works together. Share your strategies for bouncing back after likely disaster scenarios. Speak about your best practices, the results of your dry runs, the problems you found, and the ways you resolved them. Listen to what others have to say about their own experience and consider adopting some of those techniques. The exchange of information and assistance during a catastrophe can mean the difference between a disruption in business and the destruction of a business.

 

Update your disaster recovery solutions, training, and plan twice a year. Smart homeowners change the batteries in their smoke detectors twice a year. Likewise, smart businesses should take a semi-annual approach to updating their disaster recovery solutions and strategies to accommodate new data, software upgrades, and new techniques and ideas. When was the last time your disaster recovery plan was updated? If it's been longer than a year, it's been too long. Hire any new employees since the last training? Bet they don't have a clue what to do. Twice-a-year updates ensure that every employee is familiar with your disaster recovery plan, products, and procedures.

 

Use good-quality disaster recovery solutions and services for your business. Do you love your company? Then give it the very best disaster recovery technology and disaster recovery services provider to develop a customized plan for your business. Take their advice on business continuity plans, employee training, and data recovery processing procedures. No matter how large or how small your business is, the pros know the right plan for your company.

Simon O?Sullivan

Simon O’Sullivan is senior vice president of Maxava, the worldwide provider of innovative IBM i high availability and disaster recovery software solutions. He previously worked with IBM for 10 years on international implementation projects in England, Japan, and Saudi Arabia. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

BLOG COMMENTS POWERED BY DISQUS

LATEST COMMENTS

Support MC Press Online

$

Book Reviews

Resource Center

  • SB Profound WC 5536 Have you been wondering about Node.js? Our free Node.js Webinar Series takes you from total beginner to creating a fully-functional IBM i Node.js business application. You can find Part 1 here. In Part 2 of our free Node.js Webinar Series, Brian May teaches you the different tooling options available for writing code, debugging, and using Git for version control. Brian will briefly discuss the different tools available, and demonstrate his preferred setup for Node development on IBM i or any platform. Attend this webinar to learn:

  • SB Profound WP 5539More than ever, there is a demand for IT to deliver innovation. Your IBM i has been an essential part of your business operations for years. However, your organization may struggle to maintain the current system and implement new projects. The thousands of customers we've worked with and surveyed state that expectations regarding the digital footprint and vision of the company are not aligned with the current IT environment.

  • SB HelpSystems ROBOT Generic IBM announced the E1080 servers using the latest Power10 processor in September 2021. The most powerful processor from IBM to date, Power10 is designed to handle the demands of doing business in today’s high-tech atmosphere, including running cloud applications, supporting big data, and managing AI workloads. But what does Power10 mean for your data center? In this recorded webinar, IBMers Dan Sundt and Dylan Boday join IBM Power Champion Tom Huntington for a discussion on why Power10 technology is the right strategic investment if you run IBM i, AIX, or Linux. In this action-packed hour, Tom will share trends from the IBM i and AIX user communities while Dan and Dylan dive into the tech specs for key hardware, including:

  • Magic MarkTRY the one package that solves all your document design and printing challenges on all your platforms. Produce bar code labels, electronic forms, ad hoc reports, and RFID tags – without programming! MarkMagic is the only document design and print solution that combines report writing, WYSIWYG label and forms design, and conditional printing in one integrated product. Make sure your data survives when catastrophe hits. Request your trial now!  Request Now.

  • SB HelpSystems ROBOT GenericForms of ransomware has been around for over 30 years, and with more and more organizations suffering attacks each year, it continues to endure. What has made ransomware such a durable threat and what is the best way to combat it? In order to prevent ransomware, organizations must first understand how it works.

  • SB HelpSystems ROBOT GenericIT security is a top priority for businesses around the world, but most IBM i pros don’t know where to begin—and most cybersecurity experts don’t know IBM i. In this session, Robin Tatam explores the business impact of lax IBM i security, the top vulnerabilities putting IBM i at risk, and the steps you can take to protect your organization. If you’re looking to avoid unexpected downtime or corrupted data, you don’t want to miss this session.

  • SB HelpSystems ROBOT GenericCan you trust all of your users all of the time? A typical end user receives 16 malicious emails each month, but only 17 percent of these phishing campaigns are reported to IT. Once an attack is underway, most organizations won’t discover the breach until six months later. A staggering amount of damage can occur in that time. Despite these risks, 93 percent of organizations are leaving their IBM i systems vulnerable to cybercrime. In this on-demand webinar, IBM i security experts Robin Tatam and Sandi Moore will reveal:

  • FORTRA Disaster protection is vital to every business. Yet, it often consists of patched together procedures that are prone to error. From automatic backups to data encryption to media management, Robot automates the routine (yet often complex) tasks of iSeries backup and recovery, saving you time and money and making the process safer and more reliable. Automate your backups with the Robot Backup and Recovery Solution. Key features include:

  • FORTRAManaging messages on your IBM i can be more than a full-time job if you have to do it manually. Messages need a response and resources must be monitored—often over multiple systems and across platforms. How can you be sure you won’t miss important system events? Automate your message center with the Robot Message Management Solution. Key features include:

  • FORTRAThe thought of printing, distributing, and storing iSeries reports manually may reduce you to tears. Paper and labor costs associated with report generation can spiral out of control. Mountains of paper threaten to swamp your files. Robot automates report bursting, distribution, bundling, and archiving, and offers secure, selective online report viewing. Manage your reports with the Robot Report Management Solution. Key features include:

  • FORTRAFor over 30 years, Robot has been a leader in systems management for IBM i. With batch job creation and scheduling at its core, the Robot Job Scheduling Solution reduces the opportunity for human error and helps you maintain service levels, automating even the biggest, most complex runbooks. Manage your job schedule with the Robot Job Scheduling Solution. Key features include:

  • LANSA Business users want new applications now. Market and regulatory pressures require faster application updates and delivery into production. Your IBM i developers may be approaching retirement, and you see no sure way to fill their positions with experienced developers. In addition, you may be caught between maintaining your existing applications and the uncertainty of moving to something new.

  • LANSAWhen it comes to creating your business applications, there are hundreds of coding platforms and programming languages to choose from. These options range from very complex traditional programming languages to Low-Code platforms where sometimes no traditional coding experience is needed. Download our whitepaper, The Power of Writing Code in a Low-Code Solution, and:

  • LANSASupply Chain is becoming increasingly complex and unpredictable. From raw materials for manufacturing to food supply chains, the journey from source to production to delivery to consumers is marred with inefficiencies, manual processes, shortages, recalls, counterfeits, and scandals. In this webinar, we discuss how:

  • The MC Resource Centers bring you the widest selection of white papers, trial software, and on-demand webcasts for you to choose from. >> Review the list of White Papers, Trial Software or On-Demand Webcast at the MC Press Resource Center. >> Add the items to yru Cart and complet he checkout process and submit

  • Profound Logic Have you been wondering about Node.js? Our free Node.js Webinar Series takes you from total beginner to creating a fully-functional IBM i Node.js business application.

  • SB Profound WC 5536Join us for this hour-long webcast that will explore:

  • Fortra IT managers hoping to find new IBM i talent are discovering that the pool of experienced RPG programmers and operators or administrators with intimate knowledge of the operating system and the applications that run on it is small. This begs the question: How will you manage the platform that supports such a big part of your business? This guide offers strategies and software suggestions to help you plan IT staffing and resources and smooth the transition after your AS/400 talent retires. Read on to learn: