Is Your Data Center Disaster-Proof?

Hurricanes, floods, hackers or any other natural or man-made disruptions can pose a threat to your data centers with little or no warning at all. According to International Data Corp, a business loses an average of $84,000 for every hour of downtime. Therefore, having a solid Disaster Recovery plan is no longer a choice – unless you want to start over from scratch.

Most organizations today have a secondary data center or external wholesale colocation backup facilities, but having a planned Disaster Recovery colocation blueprint is critical to assess the vulnerabilities of various risks affecting the data center reliability and functionality.  The DR blueprint should have careful risk assessment keys, which illuminate the impact of a disaster on direct users, stakeholders, etc. This would facilitate efficient prioritization and scoring of risk assessment. The following points may be considered as sound reminders for a secure, quick and efficient DR plan:

Assess impact on business – Risks can vary with industry, geography and various other factors, but there are 4 general categories: Financial loss, operational commotion, reputation damage or regulatory penalties. The assessment should be able to answer two major questions in the event of a disaster: how much data would suffer and what would be the resultant financial loss, and how soon are you required to resume the operations?

Team communications – The entire company should be ready to confront a crisis. Train teams constantly so everyone is comfortable in his or her role during a data center crisis.

Technology Risks – To have proper data restorations, the original backup data should be relevant, validated and free of errors. Issues like pulling data from old versions and legacy based systems, or version control issues, etc. should be avoided.

Always be prepared – Remember, you may need to physically relocate anytime, ramp up operations in an emergency, account for transport, power outages, etc. So, be ready with sufficient, efficient and quick team members.

DR tests – Conduct semiannual tests for your DR plans depending on the changes taking place within your environment to refine it constantly.

Alex Carroll

Managing Member at Lifeline Data Centers

Alex, co-owner, is responsible for all real estate, construction and mission critical facilities: hardened buildings, power systems, cooling systems, fire suppression, and environmentals. Alex also manages relationships with the telecommunications providers and has an extensive background in IT infrastructure support, database administration and software design and development. Alex architected Lifeline’s proprietary GRCA system and is hands-on every day in the data center.