Nature’s way of telling us to always be prepared for business downtime calamities

I read blogs regularly and I also happen to reside near the North American east coast in a fairly cold climate and so I found one of Skip Williams’ most recent blogs to be both highly entertaining and very insightful (read Disaster Recovery Journal, Dec 20, 2010 blog: “But This Never Happens…”).  Williams wrote about the brutal weather that much of Europe recently endured, and how most of the countries with so-called moderate climates just aren’t prepared to deal with snow.  His point is that this kind of weather is not rare in Northern Europe, and that countries and cities should be better prepared to deal with it.  Saying “it never snows here” when it clearly does every year, then lamenting the struggles that ensue because of lack of preparedness is a pattern that just doesn’t need to be repeated. 

The same principles can be applied to the business world.  I wish I had a dollar for every time I heard someone say, “Yes, I understand the inherent value in deploying in a BC/DR solution, but we’ve never had a disaster or major system outage…and so these solutions really don’t apply to us.” 

Really? 

My response is always the same.  “It’s just a matter of time…” Whether it’s a single server crash or an entire building or city that’s out of commission because of a power outage, every business will eventually experience the pain associated with a system outage.

And if my own warning doesn’t have you re-thinking your BC/DR solution, or lack thereof, maybe this interesting study will have you taking this matter more seriously (read North America's $26.5 Billion Cold by Michael Crest, SVP and GM of CA Data Management division). The study highlights the fact that North American businesses are “collectively losing $26.5 Billion in revenue each year as a result of slow recovery from system downtime.”  According to the study, key industry segments, such as financial services, lose an average $224,297 per year due to lack of preparedness for critical system outages.

I can certainly relate to this study, as I know of one local law firm who had a major system outage lasting an entire week, and estimated that it would have lost $500,000 in billing had it not been for an existing Cloud-based BC/DR solution.  Luckily for them, they didn’t take the calm before the storm as an indication that “it could never happen to them.” They were prepared, and they were amply rewarded… not a single person knew of the outage.

So, as we enter 2011, I wish you the best and truly hope that you have an excellent business year…one that sees you embracing the Cloud and all that it has to offer.