The
floods that hit the UK this month have highlighted the benefits
of
business continuity and disaster recovery planning over ad hoc
responses.
Thousands of companies were forced to suspend business or
operate with skeleton staff after three times the usual rainfall
fell in counties including Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire in
mid-July. However, others were able to invoke
disaster recovery plans to minimise the disruption to their
businesses.
Disaster recovery companies reported a high number of business
continuity plan invocations and standby calls from customers in
Central and Western England. Most said they had not received as
many calls for a single incident since the
Buncefield fire in 2006, or the
L
ondon bombings on 7 July 2005.
"Business continuity needs to be done in advance for the longer
term to enable proper planning, implementation and testing of
systems," said Keith Tilley, managing director at disaster recovery
firm
Sungard Availability Services.
Unlike fires or explosions, disaster recovery companies said
flooding affected many more companies over a much wider area at the
same time, with firms that were not underwater affected by related
power and water cuts. The effects of flooding can also be longer
lasting. It was feared it could be months before some businesses
are up and running again.
Gloucester City Council's servers shut down after
uniterruptible power supply systems ran out of power during
protracted outages, but Jan Harris, head of IT at the council, said
there would be no permanent damage to systems. Although council
buildings were flooded, servers were located on the second floor
and were unaffected.
Fortis Insurance in Gloucester was also affected by power cuts.
The company invoked its business continuity contract with SunGard
to take 250 positions for its staff at SunGard's Bristol Workplace
Recovery Centre.
A Gloucester-based ISP said about 400 of its customers had been
affected by the flooding, either directly, or indirectly through
power and water cuts. The ISP said it was operating with a skeleton
staff at its datacentre, but it would re-route e-mail services free
of charge for businesses hit by the flooding to enable employees to
work from home.
Web hosting provider
Fasthosts Internet said its business continuity plan had
enabled the company to keep its 300,000 customers' websites online.
Although not directly affected by the flood waters, Fasthosts'
datacentre had to switch to its diesel generators when the power
went out.
Many other companies affected by the floods were also continuing
with business as usual, thanks to their business continuity
plans.
Some of these companies were supplied with mobile computer rooms
with onboard generators under contracts with business continuity
suppliers. Those unable to access their premises were relocated to
specialist business continuity centres, where they were able carry
on trading.
Business continuity: the expert view >>
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