Do your remember when the lights (and just about everything else) went out back in 2003?

At the time nobody knew what was going on or what caused it. Everything simply stopped.

I was walking up John St. in Toronto on my way to the Skydome to watch the Toronto Argonauts when it happened. I was also lucky enough to have just been to a bank machine — which made the rest of the week a little easier to deal with.

In the end it turned out to be nothing more nefarious than a system malfunction that cascaded across the power grid, giving most of the North-East the better part of a week off work.

But it was also a wake-up call to businesses about disaster recovery. That one instance showed us how vulnerable we are to things that are well beyond our control. As recently as last winter, Buffalo was locked down by four feet of snow for a week, and we had to re-route traffic from that area of the U.S. People were not allowed to drive on the streets for a couple days, so going to work was not an option.

Whether it’s a technology issue that causes the power to go off, or a flood, snowstorm, or zombie apocalypse, the lesson is the same. We need to be prepared for the unexpected.

With growing uncertainty around the world, the unexpected is now expected. And, because of that, more and more organizations are putting together disaster recovery protocols that involve off-site backups and redundancy. Indeed, if you are in our sector and don’t have a disaster recovery plan in place that includes some sort of secure data infrastructure and a place to print and mail your projects, you have a big problem.  

Prime Data has a disaster recovery service that just might fit your needs. With backup power generators and redundant internet connections, we could be the resource you require if things go down in your plant. If you’re curious, give us a call to discuss the equipment we have that could be put to use in the event that you’re not able to meet your print and mail obligations.

You’ll be prepared. The service includes regularly scheduled testing of the disaster recovery roll-over process so that you’ll be on standby should the need arise for a response to the unexpected.