Power Protection FEATURED ARTICLE

In 2005, Hurricane Wilma – the most intense hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic basin – wreaked havoc across Florida and shut down operations at Moss & Associates, a construction company.

As a mid-sized company with $650 million in revenue and more than 300 employees working across 30 active construction sites, they “needed to face our biggest data challenge: staying operational and providing remote access to online data, despite our location in hurricane country,” according to a case study in The Data Center Journal.

Company officials examine some of the lessons they learned in that disaster:

After examining a number of options, we knew a sophisticated, multi-tiered approach was the only answer to protecting our nearly 20 terabytes of data. First, fresh off the heels of the power outage from Hurricane Wilma, we purchased a giant generator, and then we got to work constructing what we call our “hurricane proof” disaster recovery plan. We estimated downtime costs, based on impact to construction schedules, among other things, to be thousands of dollars per minute, so there was no room for error.

First and foremost, we looked at data recovery. After examining various options, we concluded that remote data replication would provide us with the most reliable, easy-to-manage, and cost-effective solution for protecting and recovering critical business information.

Next, we recognized the need to have not only advanced storage management applications, but also a complete book of procedures for the data center and its disaster recovery functions.

Finally, we agreed that the solution needed to be easy to administer by even the non-technical staff. As we learned during Wilma, IT personnel may not be available when and where we need them.

“Ultimately, smart business continuity planning comes down to implementing the solution and process that gives an organization the best chance to quickly and easily restore data in the event of a disaster,” company officials concluded.