This month, 25years ago, the Chicago Flood closed downtown Chicago for three days. If it happened today, what would your business do?
The flood occurred on April 13, 1992, when the damaged wall of a utility tunnel beneath the Chicago River opened into a breach which flooded basements, facilities and the underground Chicago Pedway throughout the Chicago Loop with an estimated 250 million US gallons of water. Source Wikipedia
I remember the basements were flooded, and the utilities were turned off in the loop. The Chicago Board of Trade ended trading mid morning, and downtown was effectively closed for three days.
Back in 1992 computers were just getting started, and companies had more paper files than digital, so did companies really need a disaster plan. If they planned to stay in business, probably would have been a good idea to have copies of files like accounting ledgers and other important documents stored away somewhere else, off site. Electronic files copied to a floppy disk would go off site as well.
The Chicago Flood accentuates the idea of the unforeseen event, beyond your control. It was a nice day downtown until basements and parking garages got flooded ending business for the next three days.
So, today people are more sophisticated in the way they use digital communications, widely interconnected. They have more digital than paper files. Do they need a disaster recovery plan? That is an absolute yes they do, but do they? The answer is, sadly, no not really.
BackBlaze conducted a survey from 2008 to 2011 and found some really disappointing results:
- 35% of computer owners have NEVER backed up their computer.
- 51% of computer owners backup less than once a year (or never.)
- 2% backup more frequently than once-per-day
I know these statistics are true. This morning, I got a call at 6:30AM from a business whose computer would not start. I did some trouble shooting with them and finally after about 30 minutes we got it going. I asked them if they had a backup and there was a second of silence – no.
Does your business have a recovery plan, and if it does has it been tested?
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