PCA's Hudson Valley computer technology support blog discusses how technology impacts businesses, business owners and their support staff. New articles are posted every Tuesday.

Business Continuity in the Hudson Valley

16 June, 2009 10:36

Business continuity planning is, in simple terms, the way business owners make sure they can continue working and producing in the event of a disaster.  The United Kingdom is the only country that has legal standards for business continuity – local governments aBusiness continuity planning lifecycle diagramre required by law to provide advice to businesses on how to continue in the event of a disaster.  Businesses in the Hudson Valley don't have that level of governmental support, but developing a business continuity plan is no less important in this region.


Disasters and computers
Business computers are more vulnerable to some types of disasters than other aspects of the business, and business servers in particular are very important to safeguard.  Surge protectors and tape backups aren't enough to guarantee business continuity in the face of a calamity, and the recovery of mission-critical data without proper planning can be expensive, time-consuming, and – worst of all – incomplete.

  • Surge protectors are not all made equally.  Storms and other electrical problems can do serious damage to a server that is not properly protected.  Data and software can be lost in the blink of an eye.
  • Tape backups, even when performed consistently, are not guaranteed.  The backups must be checked for problems, and they must be stored in a secure location so the same disaster doesn't destroy the only other copy of the data.
  • Fires and floods can affect a single business or a wide area.  Water and fire damage often is enough to destroy a server, rather than damage it. 
Business continuity planning should include an estimate for how long it would take the business to get back up and running if the server or servers were lost.  This estimate should include:
  • Delivery time for new server
  • Length of time to install server on the network and configure the workstation computers to recognize it
  • Installation time for relevant software
  • Restoration of data from backup system
  • Cost of replacing any software with missing licenses
  • Time needed to recreate any data that are not recoverable from backup
Use of a virtualized server such as Remote Vault Pro Enterprise can cut down the time and expense of such a recovery operation, typically having the office network back up in about fifteen minutes after the office is able to be occupied.

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