IS YOUR DR PLAN
A DISASTER?
SCAREMONGERING OR
HARSH REALITY?
Hourly cost of downtime can
cost $42,000 per hour
IN A WORLD OF DISASTER AND SCARE MONGERING, IT IS
EASY TO BECOME IMMUNE TO A REAL AND PRESENT
THREAT…
“With the increase in reliance on IT systems to support business critical
applications, a single downtime event now has the potential to significantly
impact the profitability, and in extreme cases, the viability of an enterprise.
Gartner
Ponemon Institute Study, 2010
A small business can lose £2 –
The digital revolution has transformed the way companies do business. The
5000 per day through loss of
internet connection has become the highest- performing member of the
connectivity
workforce for many businesses, but with that success comes dependency –
and a new type of risk
Symantec 2011 (edited)
The trouble is with the increasing reliability of many networks and the
Shouldn’t the real
overblown figures in papers aimed purely at multinational corporate level,
question be why
often results in businesses viewing this very real risk as “sensationalism” and
Gamble?
taking an “It’ll never happen to me” or “It’s not relevant to my business”
attitude. There’s so much talk of disaster recovery and business continuity
plans – usually around the sale of a specific product – that businesses can be
forgiven for losing interest amongst jargon and a hard sell. Until, of course
“it” does actually happen.
This paper isn’t about exploiting a fear to make more money. It’s about
helping your business to appreciate the true threat of downtime and about
making sure you gain a name for truly reliable services. After all, it isn’t always
and immediately your bottom line which is effected when your
communications fall over, it’s your reputation too. Ethically, CAT believe
suppliers in general have a duty to increase awareness in the client base of
both the threats, and their increasing digital dependency and working
through this with the client to make sure they have it clear in their minds as
to what has to be achieved.
Water, water everywhere…
“It’ll never happen to me” until of course “it” does…
Borne out of a desire to Serve
CAT Communication Limited
Unit 23 Salisbury Road Business Park, Pewsey, Wiltshire, SN9 5PZ Registered in England and Wales 5315865
“Our DR Plan meant our clients never even
knew we were mopping up 2 inches of water
whilst checking on their orders” – Lucy Call
Centre Manager
DOWNTIME
As networks get increasingly reliable, and businesses rely on wires for more
and more services, the risks threatening those businesses are more diverse
than ever. Internet or network connection now has a finger in many pies and
companies may underestimate just how broad the impact could be across the
business.
This checklist could prove useful in prompting companies in particular SME’s to look at all areas of the workplace which
may be affected by downtime.

Telephony – effectively disabling contact centres, customer services and offices

Broadband – just what isn’t affected by internet downtime?

PDQ machines – leaving a business unable to take credit or debit card payments

CCTV – vulnerability to potential security issues
So what threats need to be considered to these essential services?
Cable Theft is a particularly well documented issue at the moment. BT saw a 134% increase in cable theft across the
financial year 201022011, causing more than 89,000 faults. Cable theft has long affected the railways which can’t operate
without signaling and other communication links, but the huge spike in the value of copper has led to cables of all sorts –
including network cables – vulnerable to theft. On the whole, metal theft costs the UK economy £770 million a year. BT
OpenReach say they’ve invested in prevention methods but warn that the ever-increasing value of metals will only make
the threat greater.
Severe weather – an “act of God” – is particularly relevant to all businesses, simply because it’s unpredictable and
arguably all businesses are equally at risk. Heavy rain, strong winds or flooding can damage cables and continuing bad
weather can exacerbate the problem by preventing engineers from getting out to fix breakages. Through the heavy snow
of 2011, businesses with no remote working facilities saw productivity plummet, with many office workers stranded for
days with no means of access to their core applications.
Human error – sometimes the smallest error can have huge consequences. Whilst construction workers, engineers or
just the general public on a DIY spree can sever a cable in minutes, the other risk here is to networks. The biggest cause
of downtime in a network is human error – simply a mis-typed piece of code or unauthorized changes can bring havoc to
business systems.
Borne out of a desire to Serve
CAT Communication Limited
Unit 23 Salisbury Road Business Park, Pewsey, Wiltshire, SN9 5PZ Registered in England and Wales 5315865
Data Centre outages – Larger businesses relying on a central server farm are particularly at risk here and a big data
centre outage can grind any business to a halt very quickly. The risk of this happening is reduced massively if you are
careful to partner with an accredited data centre with in-built redundancy and resilience but even so, in a US study it was
shown that data centre professionals experienced 2.5 complete data centre outages over a two year period, with 6.8
partial outages in the same period. The impact of this – staff unable to access business critical applications or each other
– can be devastating.
Security threats – As well as physical barriers to connectivity, there’s no forgetting the huge threat posed against data
security. Spam, virus or malware attacks can seriously disable a business in minutes, whilst data theft or hacking can not
only destroy a businesses’ credibility but also result in steep fines.
THE SOLUTION
Resilience – there are now a range of solutions in the market which offer resilience without costing the earth. For a
business adamant they need continued connectivity from their office environment, these solutions have become
affordable to all. The biggest solution is understanding what can happen to your business and making the emergency
decisions ahead of time. Think about every little item and don’t forget your How’s, who, when, where and remember
just because you know all your eggs are in one basket doesn’t mean they are safe. Ask yourself if we are all off premise –
what do we do when the data centre goes down, if we are all fixed line – what happens when the copper is stolen, What
happens when there is no power. These are all unpleasant scenarios but in a rapidly evolving environment, they are
scenarios which need planning for
Measuring the impact of outages on your business – or at least to estimate the damage– is key to providing a connectivity
solution that truly suits your needs “connection alone is no longer enough” and it is important to find the right contingency.
When it comes to data connections in today’s environment you simply need to be aware of placing all your eggs in one
basket. The internet basket has wide ranging benefits - Yes, it’s unavoidable that businesses today operate the vast
majority of their systems online. However, what’s key to your approach, is understanding how to make your business more
resilient and more inclined to survive tough economic and environmental times.
A good DR programme helps negate the impact of downtime and gives that business a leading edge. Secondly, It must be
said, however, that of course, not all businesses would be badly affected by a lost connection – or at least not enough to
support the hard sell of a diverse solution with cast-iron SLAs, as it simply won’t be worth their while. But businesses today
including SMEs have to be agile and lean, they have to be fighting fit to take on the next challenge. Resilience is something
that today’s existing businesses have already proven in order to have survived the past four years of economic crisis –the
benefits of future technological resilience should be a concept that is both familiar and welcome to any business.
DON’T REACT TO SURVIVE – PLAN TO SURVIVE
Borne out of a desire to Serve
CAT Communication Limited
Unit 23 Salisbury Road Business Park, Pewsey, Wiltshire, SN9 5PZ Registered in England and Wales 5315865