IT chiefs have been warned to ensure disaster recovery
plans are in place in the run-up to winter following a warning that
UK electricity generating capacity is at its lowest winter level
since 1995.
The warning came after the National Grid submitted a report to
utility watchdog Ofgem last week which said that only 17.7% of
spare electricity generating capacity was available - this falls
short of the target level of 20%.
IT departments were hit by power failures in August when parts of
London and Birmingham suffered power cuts.
John Collins, an analyst with Quocirca, said, "Besides achieving
graceful shutdown with a UPS [uninterruptible power supply] you
need to pay attention to powering up. You cannot just power up a
large number of computers without overloading the electrical
supply. Once they are powered up, you need to know what to do in
what order to restore the last known good copies of data being used
so that operations can be resumed.
"In general, you need to analyse your business and its requirements
and determine what countermeasures you need to take and whether
that means remote mirroring of operations or switching to an
outsourcer that can handle important processes better."
How to prepare
Remote mirroring
Mirror IT operations across branch sites so that if one goes down
others can continue to operate and take up the slack.
Use a second electricity supply
Back-up generators are suitable for large companies. Small
businesses should consider moving from desktop to laptop PCs which,
have their own batteries and can be powered down safely.
Outsource
Outsource IT functions such as e-mail, which are vital to the
business. Outsourcing companies are likely to have greater
resources to cope with unforeseen events.
Source: John Collins, Quocirca