Regular readers will have noticed that there was no availability of this site on Monday or Tuesday.  The reason is an interesting problem that no risk assesment would ever have pointed out!

This site is hosted through a Welsh Company called HROServices, based in Gwynedd.  They rent space for their webserver in a London datacentre.  On Monday, one of the datacentre employees decided that he wanted to work elsewhere and on his way out, destroyed one of the key servers within the building – with a sledgehammer!  This knocked thousands of websites off the internet, including GratisGuidance.co.uk.

Although the man was arrested, it took two days to totally fix the damage.  However, GratisGuidance was one of the lucky ones.  Other companies, with turnover based on being online, were effectively put on stop.  Others, who make their money through being seen on line, also lost income.  How do they get around this problem next time?  Seeing there is blame, is there a claim?

This whole subject is known as business continuity and is all about identifying risks and having a plan B.  The problem is – do you pay to have your entire systems duplicated to avoid any weak links?  Is the cost of maintaining it higher that the cost of something going wrong? These types of questions need to be asked and answered honestly.  Can you afford to lose two days business?  Remember that your costs would still be there.  Staff still need to be paid, rent still needs to be found.  How long can you survive with no turnover?

The other question is can you insure yourself?  More importantly, is it practical to do so?  Again it is an issue revolving around the costs and the potential rewards.

There is an event happening at ITWales in Bangor, next Tuesday evening which should cover all these issues.  The full details are here.

IF you would just like some more details of what you can do to protect your business, please contact the Flintshire ICT Advisory Service on 01352 703224.  The service is free to Flintshire based companies.