Disaster Recovery

Imagine walking into your office only to discover that there is no power! No kettle, no computers, no lights no voltage, nothing! This happened at 3am on Monday the 8th of September 2008 in the Enfield area, where DPS’s main office is based.This was clearly a disaster since DPS provide a hostingservice to over 400 computers that meant that no one could do any work, or could they? DPS are an author of case management and accounts software for the legal profession.When disaster recovery plans are put in place you can never really know if they are going to work until you have a disaster and of course that is often too late! Well, at 3:00:01am the DPS UPS (uninterruptible power supplies) kicked in to keep the servers running followed swiftly by the backup generators which supplied power to the servers in the DPS server rooms. This meant that when the hosted users logged on they were able to work from 09:18am onwards losing less than 20 minutes of the working day!Scott Ridley, technical director of DPS said, “I was delighted that the efforts we had gone to in putting together our disaster recover worked well for our clients, you can’t know how good the plans are until they are tested in ...

A data center stores all the programs, files, applications and other digital information that a business needs to have, so they may reasonably compete against businesses using the internet. If their files where destroyed, this would bring the companies production to a halt, possibly causing a crushing blow to its positive cash flow. This is why it's absolutely critical to invest time and money in a reliable data center disaster recovery plan.If you are already convinced that you must protect your data, then the next question is what exactly are we supposed to look for in a data center disaster recovery plan anyway?It does not matter if you are a huge multinational corporation or a new business just entering your fast growth phase. Every business needs a first rate computer backup system.Computer backup systems are a part of data center disaster recovery plans because they play the major role of safeguarding the pertinent data that keeps your business alive and restoring that data if a computer hardware failure occurs. Because of the importance of its function, selecting the right computer backup program is critical to your data center's disaster recovery plan.Listed below are several facts to consider during your search for the best computer backup system:Protection: How many levels of safety does ...

 Over the past 3 months DPS have signed contracts for four further hosting clients. Birds Solicitors, Meldrums, Gordon Young and R J Osbourne add to DPS’s hosting base and increase the number of clients that use their software and systems remotely.So what is hosting and how does it work? Hosting is the process by which software that is traditionally run from a desktop PC is run over the internet in virtually the same fashion. All that is required is broadband internet access to the DPS data centre - other than that, users go about their work in exactly the same way. This allows firms to capitalise on not only a wider variety of software, but also more advanced versions of hardware. Hosting ensures that software is kept up to date while the host carries the burden of keeping hardware performance checked and maintained. In addition, the need for IT staff and expertise is removed to the hosting provider. This is beneficial for firms as they can use the same software as much larger competitors offering high levels of client service without the major upfront costs.Disaster recovery is becoming a bigger issue for every firm and the DPS hosting service offers this as a by-product. When disaster recovery plans are put in place ...

For companies that work with computers, no matter the degree, it is imperative that disaster recovery solutions be analyzed and implemented.  Without a service such as this, if an IT system were to lose data, regardless of the reason, there would be no system in place for full recovery.  This means if a computer system were to crash, be damaged by fire, water, or something else and all the company information on that computer lost, without using disaster recovery, the company could easily fail.After all, business computers contain all types of information.  In addition to operating systems and software used for running the business, the computer would also contain irreplaceable business and customer information.  For instance, company financials, sales records, taxes, and employee records would be gone along with customer information, vendor numbers, invoices, contracts, and much more.Today more than any other time in history, disaster recovery solutions should be a mandate for a company to succeed. While the concept is not that old, the number of business owners now using some type of outsourcing or in-house disaster recovery is substantial.  Business owners need to take extra precautionary measures to protect the two greatest investments they have – the business and the customers.The average amount of money a company loses every hour ...

Any type of call center should make disaster recovery planning an important part of the business.  Before the doors are even open for business, this type of plan should be developed.  Initially, trying to develop such a plan for call centers, especially those that use the automatic call distribution system proved a serious challenge but with hard work and brainstorming, new ideas were discussed and plans developed.Any call center without a disaster recovery planning system in place should have one implemented immediately.  To begin, professionals who create such plans would come in and do an assessment so procedures could be outlined.  From there, general responsibilities would be summarized to help determine the different actions required for monitoring recovery plans, making modifications, getting approvals, and then overseeing operations.With disaster recovery planning, specific individuals and a director would be assigned.  These people would each have specific tasks for getting operations within the call center back up and running should a disaster occur.  The professional would also help determine the amount of time required for recovery and ultimately, create a master plan that would be taught and then used by the appropriate people within the organization.Some of the specifics associated with disaster recovery planning and call centers is to have a plan of action for ...

Unplanned downtime—Power Outage, Acts of God, Fire, you can name them small and large but all cost your company revenue. Preparing to recover your voice system can be intimidating and costly until hosted IP PBXs.Here are some best practices to help your organization meet its Recovery Time Objectives (RTO) as it applies to your Voice applications.1. Highly Reliable Telecommunication Carrier InfrastructureMost providers will center their presentations around Disaster Recovery solutions based on what to put on premises for back up and redundancy. This is all in an effort to eliminate single points of failure. Before mitigating single points of failure at your location it is important to assess the resiliency and redundancy of your telecommunication provider’s network. Is it redundant? Does it have single points of failure? How many soft switches do they maintain? Are their switches set-up to be geographically diverse? In a properly architected Hosted IP PBX model that is built for redundancy, (multiple switches at many locations with live failover) you can almost assure 100% inbound call capacity.2. Where is the Call Control (Inside or Outside your building)If the call control is maintained in the building than imagine the limitations. Someone needs to be in the building, someone needs to call a PBX maintenance person, then the typical two ...

Emergencies happen within a business. That is something that is inevitable. You never know when an entire system is going to crash or another disaster may come about. You have to be prepared for these things. If you're not, then everything will be chaotic. No one will know what to do. In other words, everyone will be running around asking each other, "What do we do now?" And no one is going to have an answer.What is a disaster recovery plan?A disaster recovery plan is that protocol in which your employees follow when a certain disaster comes about. You have to evaluate everything that could go wrong within your business and have a recovery plan for each one of those situations. Since not one situation is the same, there has to be a protocol for each. From there, your employees have to study it and know what to do immediately. This means they need to memorize. There are many disasters that do not allow time for someone to pull out a manual and read what needs to happen. They have to act immediately.But why have a disaster recovery plan in place? You should have one in place because you need to conduct business in the best manner possible for your customers. Your ...

Within the past few years there have been many different types of natural disasters across the world. Whether it is a tornado, hurricane, earthquake, tidal wave, flooding, wild fire, tsunami, or even a volcanic eruption it affects us. It may affect us in our personal lives such as our homes, loss of a family member or friend, or more. But it can also affect business or franchise owners which in turn will affect that business or franchise owner's personal life. Don't think that it won't happen to you, because in reality it very well could. So, as a business owner you should have a plan and be prepared for any form of disaster recovery you may encounter.First of all you need to have a plan for any kind of disaster you may encounter in your geographic area. It is important you all of you employees know the plan and how to execute it. You will want them to know certain measures that need to be taken. For example if you live in Florida and get hurricanes you first need to protect your windows by boarding them up, you also need to cover anything that can be damaged if water gets to it (like important files, computers, and such), you also need to ...

Data can be restored immediately to either the original server or an alternate server. Restores can also be redirected to an alternate physical location if the original office is no longer available. The server disaster recovery solution lies in having devices and technologies available which allow us to restart the vital information systems in a shorter time period than the estimated critical. These mechanisms, and all the associated plans of actions, are known as data disaster recovery.Why should I have a data back up and recovery system!By not having a data center disaster recovery plan, you are quite simply, putting your business at risk; don’t take chance with your vital data. Would you leave any other aspect of your business to chance? Not really. Always be prepared for a natural calamity or any disaster, don’t leave any if’s and but’s, leave no stone unturned when it comes to backing up your important data.Care should be taken while selecting a data disaster recovery services. The reason being your computer backup systems are the core piece of every data center disaster recovery plan. That is why your computer backup system must posses the ability to accommodate online computer backups for the most efficient protection.Have a back up of your important programs, files, and applications ...

Natural disasters like fires, floods or hurricanes can strike at a moment's notice and can affect business continuity in a major way. Disaster recovery has become a big part of business planning and many businesses have plans for relocation, collocation of important computer services and outsourcing crucial business functions in the time of an emergency.When disaster strikes, many businesses turn to telephone answering services to provide phone coverage during emergency situations and power or phone outages. This is critical when businesses rely on their phones to keep in contact with customers and can lose business if there phones are down for even a short amount of time. Telephone answering services that provide disaster recovery are offering businesses a valuable service and are insuring that business will continue when disaster strikes.If a company's phones are out of commission for whatever reason, they can be routed to a call center so they can still have their phones answered and meet their customer's needs. While a business may have to temporarily close its brick and mortar location due to a disaster, their business can continue to function through working phone lines. Call center services often have redundant phone carriers and satellite phone lines along with power backup so that their phones are never out and ...