When disaster strikes, what happens to your business?
As a specialty software consulting company in the tech triangle area of North Carolina, Qlue Consulting made sure they had insurance to cover a number of different losses. But what about when there are two losses in a short period of time or the loss includes having to spend significant time not only rebuilding antiquated computer systems but also having to rebuild data that was lost during a backup restoration? Qlue’s CTO, Eric Vought, joins us for this post with his company’s experiences at the time and how a remote data backup service might have prevented a disaster.
The Situation
The company was already working its way out of one loss caused when a nearby lightning strike wiped out its data. The company had backups, always storing one copy off-site in case something happened to the office itself and one on-site for less serious problems. They had lost the office backup copy in the lightning strike and had brought the off-site backup into the office to restore the system. Then the unthinkable happened.
A broken pipe in a higher story had burst, sending water down through the stories of the building. Because the maintenance man knew that the office had extensive computer equipment in it, he ran to the office to warn Mr. Vought about the problem. They immediately stopped the restoration and turned off the power to the system. Then the backup power supplies kicked in, just as the water broke through into the office.
The Damages
As the water hit the electronics, you can guess what happened – the electronics were fried and the second copy of the backup was destroyed. In hindsight, Mr. Vought mentioned that keeping the off-site copy out of the office and bringing in a copy of it would have been the smarter way to handle the situation, but he hadn’t anticipated two separate disasters affecting their backup data.
The company had to spend about four months working through the insurance process. Mr. Vought mentions that documenting the older equipment was almost as difficult as negotiating the settlement for the data restoration. “We had to document the fact that we couldn’t just buy replacement equipment and then there were time and other efforts that had to go into it. We had to inventory all the damaged equipment, come up with receipts, time sheets, etc. and then have an outside contractor come in and do the same thing again for the insurance company.” Compensation for rebuilding the data took nearly as long, as the insurance company offered a specific, standard rate that didn’t take into account the specialization of the company’s biotech and pharmaceutical clients. Though they did eventually negotiate the entire loss at nearly six figures, the time spent fighting with the insurance company wasn’t included.
A Better Alternative
With today’s ready internet access and the popularity of cloud computing, Qlue would have had more options that were available at the time. Mr. Vought mentions in our interview that had the backup been completed through a remote data backup service, there would have been virtually no risk to that data, and it would have been much easier to access instead of retrieving and returning it from off-site storage. His team could have been pursuing new business opportunities rather than rebuilding the company’s data and fighting with the insurance company.
Ready to make the smart choice about your business’ data backup? A remote data backup service, like Xecunet’s IBAX solution, gives you immediate access no matter the time or location, without risking having backups on-site or the hassle of retrieving off-site copies. Contact us today for more information on how to set up your remote backup service with managed IT services.