Just as in previous years, there have been scare stories about a possible power shortage. This time it seems to be a very real threat. Is your company prepared for this scenario? What happens to your business data, critical applications, your website, your servers, your processes and your customer service if the lights go out? Then a fallback solution in the cloud would be a good idea.
You have probably already heard or read about it: currently six of the seven Belgian nuclear reactors have been shut down and if this creates a power shortage, the government may switch to the disconnection plan. In order to prevent the whole country from coming to a standstill, the power will be switched off in some municipalities for three hours. If you want to avoid your company's operations also coming to a standstill, your best option is to take precautions.
No guarantee whatsoever
The government claims that the disconnection plan will not cause problems for companies because the power will be switched off between 5 pm and 8 pm, so outside standard business hours. But this ignores the fact that for some time now the digital economy has not been bound by fixed business hours. In this always-on economy, information and systems must always be available for your customers, employees, suppliers and partner companies at home and abroad. Digital, online business simply has no limits and never stops. Those who cannot offer this flexibility will quickly fall by the wayside. In addition, the disconnection plan states: ‘If the specific situation requires it, the outages can also occur at other times and last longer.' So there is no guarantee whatsoever.
Is your IT environment prepared for a power outage?
Everything you need to do to take precautions.
Download eBookImpact on your own IT environment
A sudden power outage will in any case affect your IT infrastructure – for example, you could lose data, your hardware could malfunction and break down, or you may have problems with restarting afterwards. The negative impact on your business processes would be at least as serious. After all, these depend on your IT systems. Could you still communicate with your customers if the IT stops working completely? How much would you lose in terms of your turnover and company image if your website were unavailable for hours? And what about the employees, customers and suppliers in other time zones?
The disconnection plan now hangs like the sword of Damocles over your business. However, this is undoubtedly not a subject you want to worry about. You already have enough things on your mind and you would prefer to concentrate on your customers and the performance of your company. But now it is more important than ever to consider your business continuity and how you can safeguard it: disaster recovery.
Disaster recovery in the cloud
Do you now really have to invest time and resources in a sophisticated disaster recovery plan, with diesel generators for the power supply in case of an emergency? Fortunately not. You can just as well opt for a fallback solution in the cloud: Disaster Recovery as a Service (DraaS). This means you don't need to provide your own additional site and IT infrastructure for disaster recovery and your data are always available. Not only do you store a backup of your data but also of your entire business environment, including servers and applications. If your primary systems fail, you can continue working through the cloud.
Setting the right priorities
Even if the disconnection plan isn't put into operation, we would still recommend that you always have a backup of your IT environment at a second site. Cheops can help you to set the right priorities and work out a disaster recovery plan. What's more we also test the plan, so that everything runs smoothly if it needs to be implemented.
Want to know more?
Download the brochure about Disaster Recovery as a Service