As I’m writing this, Canada’s largest telecommunications provider is dealing with a system-wide outage that is impacting all of Canada’s infrastructure. Because this situation is ongoing, we don’t have all the information yet (namely what caused this outage), but it does provide a moment of reflection for those of us not currently impacted. How can your business continue operating when it seems like the whole country is down?
When choosing the applications to use for your day-to-day operations, it is important to think about the worst-case scenario. (Hopefully) all your options will work seamlessly when there aren’t service interruptions, but disaster scenarios are where solutions shine. For the most protection, you should prioritize cloud-based infrastructure that has the option of working offline or having data locally hosted. Microsoft Azure has a 99.95% service level agreement (SLA) that guarantees an extremely high uptime, especially compared to on-premises data centers.
However, even if the solution works when you are offline, there may be issues if the solution’s infrastructure is experiencing an interruption. You may be unable to authenticate which would mean you’re unable to use the service. Azure Active Directory works offline, which is another level of defense against outages and failures. And of course, for the most critical of functions, it doesn’t hurt to have a paper copy, especially since most printers are wireless devices meaning you would be useless in the event of an outage.
With the telecommunications provider down, so are most ATMs and card transaction services. As a business, you should always be able to accept cash if cards are not working. Many companies halted the use of cash and coins during the pandemic, so it is worth making sure that you still have a lockbox and drawer for your register somewhere. For individuals, it’s always a good idea to keep an emergency stash of cash in a safe place so you’re prepared if ATMs and card processors are down.
If there is an outage affecting payroll, your company needs to be able to write checks for every single employee. What if you don’t know how much to pay your employees because you can’t access their timesheet? Most companies would match the employee’s previous paycheck and reconcile the balance when service is restored.
When it feels like the world is on fire and you’re just trying to keep the business running, you may feel tempted to do “whatever it takes” to turn a profit. However, compliance is still the number one priority – if you can’t meet regulatory standards with your backup plan, then you cannot do business. Luckily, there are systems in place to protect you if this happens. Business Interruption Insurance helps replace lost income and covers extra expenses during a (covered) event that stops the business from functioning. If your infrastructure is down and you’re unable to satisfy compliance requirements, you can file a claim with your insurance provider to help recover from losses.
Businesses should always have a secondary internet service provider (ISP), as well as data backups and failover servers. Backups are one of the strongest disaster recovery practices because they protect you against datacenter failures, region-wide failures, and update failures. Having a second ISP allows you to switch almost instantly to a provider that is not experiencing downtime. According to Gartner, each minute of downtime costs a business up to $9,000 so it is critical to have backups and secondary solutions.
When it comes to your data, you don’t want to take any chances. Our BCDR solutions offerings can be tailored to fit your business needs and ensure your data is protected when it is most vulnerable. Contact us today and we’ll get you in touch with the right person that can understand your organization’s business continuity needs.
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