Weathering the Storm with Business Continuity and Disaster Relief

Until very recently, businesses planned for “disaster recovery,” or how to recover after a disaster or an unplanned interruption of service. But due both to new types of technology that weren’t as prevalent before—from cloud computing to virtualization and data replication—and because of an increasing reliance upon data and 24/7 uptime, that sort of disaster recovery plan is much less common today.

Today, the focus of most business plans is business continuity—keeping the business running and avoiding the impact of disasters altogether (or at least significantly).

In thinking about what your business continuity and disaster relief (BC/DR) needs might be and how Digital Realty can help, it helps to first address how BC/DR in a data center might apply to you. If you meet any of the following criteria, it may be worth talking about and implementing BC/DR:

• All of your computing resources are contained within one facility in a single geographic area
• You’re space constrained and have trouble housing both your primary and backup computing resources
• You’re using another colocation provider that has had questionable results, and are looking to diversify your backup services
• Your current data center facilities reside in areas impacted by heavy snow, hurricanes, earthquakes, or flooding

Looking at these criteria, we think one thing is certain: nearly all businesses today could see at least some benefit from our BC/DR services. As is true with nearly all other data center services-related business needs, the success of your corporate business continuity program rests on the capabilities brought to bear to help successfully guide your business through unplanned downtime and natural disasters.

Here’s how we can save you money over your current recovery solution:

• We offer facilities manned 24/7 for assistance if needed, space that is in the same building where critical infrastructure is deployed that meets the same security levels as the data center, all with flexible designs to suit different customer needs
• We offer full UPS/generator protection with multiple diesel generators, emergency fuel delivery contracts, and emergency backup generators onsite protecting the load if commercial power is interrupted
• We offer fully built-out office suites in class “A” buildings, a well lit and spacious area for each individual to work and feel comfortable on demand, and a fully-finished recovery space ready for any design needed
• We offer carrier-neutral data centers, metro cross connects with multiple SONET rings, and diverse carrier feeds into the facility for extra protection of services

At Digital Realty, we’re well aware of the many business benefits that can come with the proper utilization of new technology, and our commitment to quality BC/DR reflects that awareness. No matter what your business needs may be, we’re here to ensure that you can move beyond the outdated strategy of disaster recovery and into the new structure of business continuity. Want to learn more about our BC/DR solutions and how they can help your business? Feel free to reach out to us via the contact page of our site.