Are you prepared for IT failure?

Ever felt like you have to keep banging the same old drum to get the message through? Yesterday, we spotted an article on the BBC news website which told us that someone else is banging the same drum we are . . . . disaster recovery planning for your IT systems.

A report by IT Group EMC said 74% of respondents (1,750 surveyed) were not very confident they could restore their networks and 54% had lost data or suffered downtime in the past twelve months. The conclusion? Firms need to place a greater emphasis on backup and recovery systems. Have you considered the cost if you don't?

We've blogged about this in the past:

But day by day we still come across companies and individuals who have failed to make adequate provision for backing up their data and to plan for how to get back up and running as quickly as possible in the event of a disaster. If you're worried that could be you, why not give us a call today and arrange a consultation with one of our IT support engineers?

November 25, 2011 at 4:01 pm | Business Technology | No comment

What is the cost of IT failure to your business?

Computers and technology - however much we might not want it to be the case, the reality is our businesses are increasingly reliant on them.

Have you sat down and done the maths for your business on what the cost of technology failure would be?

Wage costs

Firstly, there's the cost of people failure. As you can roughly add 50% to someone's wage in associated costs of employing them, the following would be the cost to your business of lost staff time:

Hourly wage x 1.5 x number of people x length of downtime = cost of downtime

So for example:

Wage of £10 ph x 1.5 x 5 employees x 4 hrs downtime = £300

Catch up costs

You might then have to play catch up and pay overtime to get onto missed workload, so doubling that cost. And if it's an extended outage, you might find yourself forever playing catch up.

Income loss

If work can only be done in real time, there's an immediate loss of income as well. For example, if you're an insurance business and your computers being down prevents you being able to access data to give an answer to the customer on the phone, your competitor is only a phone call (or click!) away.

Customer loss

Next there's the cost of loss of customer confidence. If an IT outage prevents you delivering on your promises, will they order from you the next time?

Data loss

If an IT outage causes loss of data, then there are the costs of potential customer information loss or the time costs involved in recreation of data. If you've ever tried recreating accounts data . . . it is a painful business! Plus you may fall foul of data protection regulation in the process.

Cash flow problems

Not only is no work being completed and going out the door to keep customers happy, but neither are invoices - creating a double whammy in potential cash-flow problems further down the line.

Cost of repair

On top of all of this, if you don't have an IT support contract or expertise in house, then not only will you have to find a trustworthy IT technician, but you will be at the back of their queue behind customers with Service Level Agreements and you may well also be paying a higher hourly rate and may have to wait for new equipment to be delivered. A new server can take 3-5 days to build - could your business survive that long?

So what can you do?

Plan . . . plan . . . plan. Look at every aspect of your business and its use of technology and evaluate how you can either prevent failure or minimise its impact. Put in place comprehensive backup solutions and design methods that allow you to get up and working again sooner rather than later. A good IT support company can help you by evaluating potential failure points, looking at solutions which minimise risk of failure and monitoring your systems to prevent problems becoming "fatal". For many small businesses today, cloud solutions for email and data storage can provide cost effective options to massively reduce your IT risk.

If you want to assess your business's exposure to the risk of IT failure and put in place a strategy to deal with this, then do give us a call on 01676 521444 and one of our engineers will be happy to talk it through with you. We offer cost effective IT support contracts that you can tailor to fit your business' needs.

November 15, 2011 at 2:07 pm | Business Technology, Business Thinking, Cloud Computing | No comment

Don’t let running your IT distract you from running your business

We all know how important it is to have the right IT infrastructure in place, but so often achieving and maintaining this can take valuable time away from growing and working on your business. And often it can lead to sleepless nights, is it going to be working in the morning and if it isn't what do you do?

Big companies have the luxury of in-house engineers, but the cost of this for most SMEs is prohibitive, not only the cost of employing but the high cost of ongoing training required to ensure that they are up-to-date with the latest technology developments so they can pro-actively suggest how your IT could work harder for you.

But there is a way to get all the big benefits of an IT department without the big overheads. Here's just a few ways it can help:

Your time burden is reduced and the sleepless nights too
An outsourced IT company can bring a raft of experience from their wide client base to help you get the best from your IT
You get the benefit of continuously trained engineers, bringing innovative ideas, without the high cost
You get a team of engineers so that you don't have to worry about holidays or sick leave
If you've got a problem, chances are that the engineer has seen it somewhere before as they aren't just limited to experience in one company
They can bring resources and ideas to help plan and manage your IT in the event of recovering from disaster

So why not make this year the year that your systems work better for your business, by looking at whether outsourcing your IT department could work for your business?

January 13, 2011 at 2:28 pm | Business Technology | No comment

Disaster Recovery

by Ian Cutler

"SMBs will go out of business if they cannot get to their data in the first 24 hours after a crisis." - Gartner

You would be surprised at how many small and medium businesses do not take Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity seriously. I think I can safely assume most, if not all, businesses are taking backups of some description, if not now is a good time to start! A backup is all well and good but there are additional factors to take into account which are often overlooked:

1 What data does the backup contain? Is it just a daily backup of company and user data?

2 Is the backup schedule set up to get the most effective snapshot of your system?

3 Is the backup being taken offsite?

4 How quickly can the systems be back-up and running?

5 Can you be sure of a full recovery?

Having a backup is only a small part of a Disaster Recovery plan.

The Scary Bit

Disaster Recovery Statistics

* 43% will never re-open
* 80% fail within 13 months
* 53% of claimants never recoup the losses incurred by a disaster
Source: Aveco

* Less than 50% of all organisations have a business continuity plan
* 43% of companies that do have a business continuity plan do not test it annually
* 80% of companies have not developed any crisis management to provide IT coverage sufficient to keep the business functionally effectively
* 40% of companies that do have crisis management plans do not have a team dedicated to disaster recovery
Source: London Chamber of Commerce

The Disaster Recovery statistics do not take into account the costs involved while your systems are down.

Downtime Costs

What is the cost per hour of major systems downtime at your organisation?

Up to £1000	23%
£1,000 - £5,000	16%
£5,000 - £10,000	11%
£10,000 to £20,000	7%
£20,000 to £50,000	3%
Above £50,000	15%
Not Sure	25%

Source: Information Age

Coupling the costs incurred during the downtime of a disaster with the possibility of never being able to recover and restore all the data then this can be a costly exercise to a business - especially if a Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Plan is not in place.

The Disaster Recovery Plan

Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity should not be confused with each other. Disaster Recovery usually relates to the IT infrastructure, systems and data and is a part of the Business Continuity plan. Business Continuity is usually the term given to a company’s overall survival strategy in the event of a disaster. Although separate they are not mutually exclusive and the Disaster Recovery plan should be worked on in parallel with any Business Continuity plan.

As mentioned earlier it is not enough to just have a backup, a business needs to know the importance of the data being backed up, the priority of the data, the cost of downtime and the cost of data loss. A Disaster Recovery Plan will not only address all the details but will save your company money should the unthinkable happen. It is better to be pro-active and not reactive.

1. Get to know what it is that keeps your business going.

The first stage of the Disaster Recovery Plan is to look at what data your company houses and prioritise it’s importance to your business. Are emails the top of your list? Users and company work on a file server? Or do you have a large database of client and financial data? The idea is to have knowledge of your company’s data, where it stored, how your business interacts with it and how you would cope without it.

2. Calculate the cost of downtime.

This part requires a look at the cost to the business of the data being unavailable for significant amount of time. The cost is not just calculated in financial loss but also in loss of business and other criteria ie employee, customer, legal, and obligations.

3. Work out what is the best backup solution and schedule for your systems.

Not all your data will have the same backup requirements. For example a weekly backup, which is fine for server System State, certainly isn’t going to be enough for a company with a large file server or business critical databases. Likewise a backup which creates a continuous mirror of data would be overkill for a weekly System State snapshot. An appropriate schedule and backup solution needs to be implemented to make sure all avenues are covered.

Businesses running 7x24x365, such as hotels, which have few opportunities for backup windows should consider implementing a continuous protection replication backup solution.

4. Remove the backed up data from the building.

This may seem obvious but if there is a fire, flood or structural damage to the building there is a very good chance the backup media will be damaged along with the IT equipment. Removing the backup media offsite in rotation will certainly be of massive benefit if the business has to relocate to temporary or new premises.

There are online backup solutions available which backup systems over the Internet and allow for restoration via download. These can be very useful in recovering accidentally deleted files but a full recovery can be a very slow process.

5. Run and test the Disaster Recovery Plan.

Making sure your Disaster Recovery plan works is the final part. Keeping a watchful eye on your backups is a must as sometimes servers crash or the scheduler for whatever reason doesn’t start. It is foolish to set the backup schedule and sit back!

Evolving the Disaster Recovery plan as your business evolves and testing the solution will make sure that in the event of a disaster the cost to your business and disruptions are minimal.

November 25, 2009 at 4:43 pm | Business Technology | No comment

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