HOUSTON BUSINESS REVIEW

COST-EFFECTIVE IT: When Disaster Strikes
By Richard Sonnier

Houston Business Show Commentator Richard Sonnier, of the Information Technology Services firm Nimble Services, provides weekly information on our show about information technology issues. Mr. Sonnier can be reached at 281.445.4800 x 250 or via email.

Disaster Planning
All the hurricanes battering the Gulf Coast this year highlights the importance of IT disaster planning. During Hurricane Rita, many customers called us at the last minute worried about their computers and data. Luckily, we were able to put in place some stop-gap measures. If Houston had taken a direct hit from the storm, many businesses would have been down for days or weeks. Some would have gone out of business altogether. You must plan ahead to survive a disaster.

Maximum Downtime
First, you must decide how long your IT can be down? Some companies cannot be down even 1 day without severe financial consequences. Others can be down for 1 week before it is a serious problem. You should calculate your downtime cost per day. For example, if you take most of your orders over your website, then your downtime cost is your average daily revenue.

Disaster Insurance
Once you know your downtime cost per day and how many days you can be down, you can buy some IT disaster insurance. This insurance can be any of the following:

• Business Continuity Insurance that will reimburse your downtime cost per day or some percentage of it

• A data backup system that can copies your critical data to a portable device and stores it away from your office

• A backup computer that can run your business systems away from your office

• A disaster proof co-location facility that houses your critical computers and data away from your office

• Next week, I will discuss these disaster insurance options in more detail.