Hurricane Ike almost completely submerged the city of Galveston and its
60,000 residents under floodwaters.
Houston received 110 mile-per-hour hurricane-force winds, blowing out windows,
knocking down trees and leaving more
than 2 million customers without power —
many for more than two weeks. Flooding
rains and power outages extended as far
north as Chicago, more than a thousand
miles away. Damage estimates from Ike are
expected to exceed $27 billion, making it
the third costliest U.S. hurricane of all time,
behind Andrew in 1992 and Katrina in 2005.
“The prolonged power outages and long
lines for basic necessities, including fuel
and ice, made recovery even more problematic, causing many businesses to
rethink their continuity of operations
plan,” says Tim Barto, Executive Vice
President of Houston-headquartered
DYONYX. “It’s one of the perils of living on
the Gulf Coast — and it’s not over yet.”
According to forecasters, the Atlantic
hurricane season has had 12 named
storms, of which six were hurricanes, and
the season doesn’t end until Nov. 30.
Smart Business asked Barto for his insight
into businesses planning for emergencies.
Particularly on the Gulf Coast, why don’t all
companies have a well-documented plan for
dealing with emergencies?
It is mind-boggling that despite the man-made and natural disasters that are a reality today, many companies are not prepared
to maintain their business operations in the
event of an emergency. In fact, according
to a recent study on business continuity
and disaster recovery preparedness, one in
five businesses does not have a business
continuity plan developed, and nearly 30
percent do not consider business continuity planning a priority. For those that do
have a plan, it is estimated that less than a
third enact testing prior to implementing it.
While you may have been considered one
of the ‘lucky’ thus far, emergencies come in
many forms — not just hurricanes. Only 15
percent of declared disasters are weather-related. Another 16 percent are attributed
to power outages, which we learned the
consequences of during Ike. Forty percent
of disaster events are attributed to hardware failure and network outages.
According to Gartner, two-thirds of companies without a plan that experience a disaster will not recover and, in fact, will close
within two years of the event.
What are others in the Houston business
community doing to minimize risk and maintain operations?
Successful businesses understand the
need to be resilient — regardless if the
event is a hurricane, a hacker, hardware
failure or system downtime. They have a
documented and tested plan that includes
business continuity and recovery of core
applications. At a minimum, after accounting for the well-being of employees and
families, an effective communications plan
is key to maintaining operational status of
your business. This requires what most
companies consider essential for employees and customers alike, and that is your
phone system, e-mail and Web-facing applications. Having your core applications and
internal/external communication systems
in a hardened facility when your business
is without power and your servers are
down the hall become paramount to being
resilient and maintaining operations.
Replicating essential data to another geographic location is another consideration.
What’s the difference between business continuity and disaster recovery planning?
A business continuity plan defines continuance of business operations from a business process standpoint. For example, your
business might be able to continue using
only cell phones and a manual process
using paper forms. A disaster recovery plan
focuses primarily on the provision of computing and telephony resources used to support business operations. This part of the
plan aids in the step-by-step restoral of
required computing resources.
A disaster can take different forms and
severity and is often subjective based on the
impacted business function. A disaster may
be as simple as a burst water main or as catastrophic as a hurricane. Regardless of the
level of event, the effects must be evaluated
and a plan designed to assist in prioritizing
continuance or restoration efforts.
Are there other business benefits to disaster
recovery/business continuity planning?
Good preparation is good business.
Disaster recovery and business continuity
are no longer just an IT issue — but a business imperative. In addition to minimizing
losses, reducing customer impact and preserving reputation, the added benefit of
leveraging third-party hosting and management of your core applications include, for
example: guaranteed uptime and redundancy, reduced hardware/software refresh
costs, fixing your IT spend, leveraging
operational versus capital costs, and the
benefit of third-party experts to ensure
your business resilience. The hard truth is
that your customers in ‘unaffected’ parts of
the world feel for you, but in this age of
global commerce and need for 24-7 operations, the show must go on. Be prepared.
Be resilient. You may not be so lucky the
next time.
TIM BARTO is Executive Vice President, Sales and Marketing, for DYONYX. Reach him at (713) 830-5910 or [email protected].
