Safeguarding business data from disaster critical effort for companies, confab told

Telcos have to consider their vulnerabilities when it comes to network security. While the exercise may be costly, it is considerably cheaper than trying to rebuild after a disaster, a conference was told. George Henny, president of FiberCloud Inc., told delegates to the Telecommunications Showcase and Seminars of the Canadian Independent Telephone Association that it costs between $10,000 and $20,000 for companies to protect their data. That amount can be burnt through very quickly if the need to restore data suddenly appears, he added. "The cost of recovery can be significantly higher than the cost of prevention," he stated. The head of the Bellingham WA-based bandwidth provider said speed is of the essence when disaster strikes. Henny produced figures that show 40% of companies said their survival was most at risk within 72 hours of data loss. Others claimed the time period was even less.He told delegates to consider four hidden vulnerabilities when examining their readiness for data loss. One is complacency, the "It’s never happened before" syndrome. Another is untested backup systems. He stressed two little-discussed factors-the single point of failure and the single point of knowledge. The single point of failure could be the Internet, the server or similar piece of equipment. The single point of knowledge occurs when only one person in an organization has the expertise needed to recover the information. Participants groaned when Henny told them an anecdote about a firm that did a full data backup on Mondays, with incremental backup every other day. One person was responsible for physically removing the tapes each day. When the system crashed, the company assembled the previous week’s tapes and discovered that one "tape" was actually a tape cleaner. All the material for that day had been lost. Much can be at stake when data systems fail. Henny listed 16 things across various sectors that come into play during emergencies. There is loss of revenue, market share and billing data. Companies can lose HR information and customer records. Working files, correspondence and intellectual capital are also threatened. Having proper backup is essential, the FiberCloud president said. He referred to one large American university that had a state-of-the-art data tower stored in a building near its main data centre. He then showed pictures of the worthless junk the tower was turned into when fire swept the building housing the backup system. Henny said firms have to be prepared for both man-made and natural disasters. They tend to be roughly equivalent occurrences, he noted.

Safeguarding business data from disaster critical effort for companies, confab told

News | March 3, 2004

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