Channelnomics reported that winter storm Juno hit the northeastern region of the country hard over the winter season, forcing many data centers to put their disaster recovery plans to the test. The harsh weather phenomenon likely lead facilities with data centers in New England to take a harder look at their disaster recovery plans and reconsider their allocation of DR resources going forward. Don’t wait for a weather disaster to strike your data facility to implement a comprehensive disaster recovery strategy – acting now will ensure your company’s data services stay online no matter how crazy the weather gets.
A little extra research never hurts
It’s always prudent to stay aware of local weather forecasts, especially if your business runs a data center. Even a days’ notice will provide your IT team with time to review its DR strategy with key team members and communicate the risk of an outage to customers – these precautions can go long way toward minimizing the impact of a weather-related emergency on your business, but only if your company is willing willing to dedicate a staff member’s time to keeping an eye out for potentially troubling weather developments. While this solution may help to soften the blow, a powerful storm could easily knock out your data center despite your IT team’s best precautions.
Storms in particular pose a multi-faceted threat to the facility
The Data Center Journal warned that storms in particular have the potential to bring down a data center. Heavy rain, strong winds and snowstorms each have the capacity to bring down a community’s power grid, and loss of power can mean instant downtime for your data center. Storms can threaten data centers to a lesser extent by hindering communication and transportation, limiting a company’s ability to problem-solve in the midst of a serious data center disaster.
Strategies for standing up to Mother Nature
There are several strategies your business can deploy as a means of defending the data center from unpredictable weather. Start by having the IT team redraft the company’s DR plan to take account for a wider range of threats, including weather-related power outages. Establishing a communications strategy for use in lieu of phone and Internet access is another way to preempt the difficulties that might come with an unruly storm. Finally, Seacoast Online recommended utilizing a remote backup strategy, such as Disaster-Recovery-as-a-Service, as a means of securing your data in multiple locations.
