By Jeff Garell
While the best disaster planning should always take place in advance, we recognize that the looming potential damage from heavy rains and Hurricane Joaquin in the coming days is a good time to make sure your business has every base covered.
First and foremost is not just checking that you have backups, but verifying that they are good and you can restore from them. You'd be surprised the number of times someone diligently verifies that the backup software claims it's successful but has never tested a restore - even if it's just restoring a few random files.
Just as important as having good backups is verifying that you've been backing up the right stuff. Again, we've come across problems where the backup solution was set up years ago, while processes/applications/critical data have changed and the backups have not been adjusted accordingly.
Next would be to figure out how to continue operations if your location is out of power/flooded/generally inaccessible. Depending on your business, this might not be possible or necessary. For instance, a high-end clothing store would be less interested in trying to sell fancy clothes and more interested in protecting its inventory from looters or floodwaters until the emergency passes. To stay with retail examples, a grocery store or home improvement store will be very interested in maintaining its operations to help those affected (and make a few bucks).
The majority of businesses will want to somehow continue to operate and keep the revenue flowing. This is generally referred to as business continuity, and, depending on the business, might involve having a paper process as the backup to today’s more automated solutions.
Prior to leaving the office for the last time before a predicted storm hits, consider shutting down and unplugging all your IT/Telephone/electronic assets, making sure they're off the floor, and, as an added precaution covering them with plastic sheeting. DO NOT cover with plastic sheeting if you don't turn everything off or your assets will overheat, possibly melt the plastic and be a fire hazard. Be sure you know how to put everything back in place - or arrange with your service provider to do it - once the storm passes.
If you don't already have a Business Continuity Plan (BCP) or Continuity of Operations Plan (ConOP), it's probably too late to start with the current storm bearing down on the Mid-Atlantic. Once things calm down, however, start that that planning process. A solid and practiced BCP answers the questions of what and how to do your recovery before you're in panic mode. Showing you have one might reduce your insurance costs, and if you show you followed your plan, then the insurance companies will often expedite your claim with fewer questions about why you made X decision.
One final and important note: When facing widespread problems (regional power outages from ice storms or hurricanes, for example), every business owner or manager must remember this affects your employees’ families just as much as it affects your business operations. You'll be hard pressed to get everyone in to try and save the business when your employees’ families also are going through considerable hardship. You must keep this in mind in any contingency planning you put together.
Jeff Garell is co-founder of Convergent Technologies Group.
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