As Resolve’s resident solutions specialist, I’m in the privileged position of being able to help business owners and professionals from all walks of life with a vast range of problems. From upgrading servers, to moving websites and email providers, to shifting entire infrastructures to the Cloud, to monitoring internet usage across an organisation; no two days are the same.
One of the most common topics I come across - with both new and existing customers - is disaster recovery. The leading question for any business owner is: what will happen to my business in the event of a disaster?
My first reaction to this, is to go back a few steps and look at how a “disaster” is defined. Typically, a disaster to a business is anything that completely stops that business from running. Right now, you are probably thinking along the lines of a flood, a fire, meteorite (maybe?) or another natural event that renders your place of work a smouldering pile of ashes. Whilst these are very real threats (ok, perhaps the Space rock can be put to the bottom of the pile), there are much more likely, common occurrences that would qualify as a disaster.
Threats from cyber attack and malware infection are not only more prevalent every day, they have the potential to bring a business to its knees in moments. Critical hardware failure, often relating to the supply of mains power, can do the same. Theft is another big player in this conversation; whilst data theft online is a big threat, physical hardware theft remains a serious consideration too.
So, other than move your business to a nuclear proof datacentre and running things from there (yes, such a place exists! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pionen), what can you do, as the person responsible for such decisions, to alleviate these risks? There are several different answers to a question like this, and a disaster recovery plan for a business can span volumes. It is my job to find a solution to such a problem; at least, where IT is concerned.
Fortunately for me and for business owners alike, the Microsoft Azure Cloud platform is the perfect tool for this problem, and I’m genuinely excited to be introducing it to our customers. Put simply, with the right criteria, we can move your entire IT suite (think “mission critical” components like your business applications and servers) to the Cloud, and have them up and running in as little as 15 minutes. Even for non-IT folk, I would like to think that this is pretty staggering…
To demonstrate just how impressive this is, imagine you walked over to your servers, humming away, powering those crucial services that keep your business ticking over, and yanking the power cables out of the back. At that point, the clock starts and, within minutes, the Servers are running in the Cloud. All you need to do is log off and back on, and you are none the wiser of the switch, you can just keep on working. This level of disaster recovery is unprecedented, especially with small and medium sized business. Even as little as three years ago, the cost to build such capability would easily roll into four figures, and would need replacing every few years.
Very few SMEs have the capital to throw into building such a disaster recovery solution and there is a long list of considerations to fight over the budget. Where do you send your staff if your premises are inaccessible? What computers do they use? How do they use the phones? If you are a manufacturer, how does production continue? With all these considerations, having such a fantastic tool in the bag when it comes to the IT side of things is a huge help.
Our ever-growing partnership with Microsoft, allows us to get an amazing insight into the power of the Cloud. This technology makes the lives of professionals like me – dealing directly with the customers facing the problems – just that bit easier. Such a ground-breaking service will enable a huge majority of our customers to deliver a real disaster recovery solution, with more capability than ever before.
I’d love to talk more about this service with you, and even arrange a "live" demonstration! If you’d like to discuss this further, please complete the contact form below.
