Unrealistic expectations

We live in interesting times right now… Everyone expects complete 100% “uptime”, but nobody has the budget to support those kinds of expectations. These kinds of unrealistic expectations were underlined recently when Google’s “free” services were unavailable due to a server error and service was interrupted. In Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery, there would be contingency plans put in place, but with today’s market it is tough to find the financing to have the redundant systems in place.

The job of a good Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery specialist is to build a plan (both recovery and project) that allows it to be flexible enough to maximize its effectiveness when there is money to build and sustain it when the budget is limited. This is where the questions arise; How do I find a good specialist? What is the best solution for me (and my company)? How can I build a solution that is flexible? Keep reading and we’ll examine how each of these questions are the foundation for your project and can lead you in the right direction.

It isn’t uncommon to be skeptical of a consultant, which is why we have seen their title change from “Consultant” to “Managed Service” over the years. Most people feel that a consultant is simply there to punch the clock and not exactly geared towards results, even though they are being paid a lot of money. How do you find a good one? Have them work on a fixed rate, with specific goals in place. You should treat a consultant (Business Continuity or Disaster Recovery) as a project. If you let them run their own timetable with no specific goals, they will become your most expensive employee. If they are signed to a fixed rate and a specific goal, it is in both of your best interests to get the job done and as soon as possible. Don’t be wary of consultants; just make sure you do you homework before you sign!

As you work, manage or own a successful business, you already know what solutions work best for you. Are you an “online” office? Is your entire office paperless? Is your office full of paper and you “need it” to operate. Or is the bulk of your workforce mobile? The answer to each of these requires very different strategies and very different solutions to ensure the best chance for recovery. Your Disaster Recovery or Business Continuity plan should reflect the manner in which your regular business operates. For example, our office works in a paperless environment, if you gave any of us a binder of paper to carry around with us, it just won’t happen. The plan would be shoved in a drawer somewhere and it would be out of date when needed because paper doesn’t occur in our daily workflow. On the other end of the scale, some of our clients need the paper binder as a security blanket of sorts, without it they don’t feel prepared. You must find a solution that fits into the regular workflow of your office and be prepared to think outside of the box for different ways of getting the information to your team.

All projects are impacted by advancements in technology and slowdowns in the economy; Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery are no different. Thus building a flexible recovery solution for you business is key. As with all contracts, avoiding being locked into one long-term contract with only one technology is essential. If you are looking for a solution that is going to grow (or shrink) with your business, make sure your contract allows for flexibility. Also, avoid being locked into one solution that doesn’t fit your business model. If your company has only one facility, with one server room, having an online solution that requires a digital token on your PC to access your hosted plan is a recipe for failure!  Hosted solutions work really well when business is operating as normal, but when a disaster strikes, your hosted solution might hold you hostage if the Internet is down. Conversely, if you keep your plan as a giant binder in your office and you can’t get to it (fire, gas leak, etc…), it isn’t much help. For these reasons and any number more, find a solution that works for you and build your plan accordingly. Any good service provider (software or managed services) should be able to determine a solution that works for you. If you feel they are pushing service on you, consider changing to a vendor neutral provider.

Here are some stats to consider when researching a solution for your business, if the service provider promises 100% availability with their hosted solution they simply cannot deliver. All Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery planners are aiming for 99.9999% (commonly referred to six nines) that allows for 52 minutes and 3 seconds of downtime per year. When Google had their “hick-up” they were down for roughly four hours. If Google can fail for four hours, the likelihood of your hosted service provider being available 100% of the time is very small!  This 100% uptime should be a red flag that you should be checking for another provider.

To recap the above paragraphs, we have learned that we need to do due diligence on our proposed consultants (or Managed Services) to ensure they are who they say they are and can offer the solution they promise. Also, it is critical to have set deliverables for a set price. Without this, budgeting and expectations cannot be fulfilled. Find a solution that works for you!  It can be as simple as a copy of your critical documents on a portable hard drive in your shoebox. Or as complex as sending your recovery plan to every Blackberry in your company. Whatever you choose to do is better than nothing, but it must work for you (and your company).

Finally, the resulting plan must be flexible and grow with your company. If you get locked into a solution that works for today, but doesn’t allow for any growth you are going to be looking for another solution in the near future and will likely have to start the entire process over again. None of these points should be completely foreign to you, but being able to put them all into place without being “sold” on a solution that doesn’t work for you can be very hard.

As budgets are at the forefront of everyone’s mind right now, when researching a solution provider, make sure they can combine the above points into a solution that works for your budget. There are a lot of providers that will charge you a lot of money for a solution that is complete overkill, but there are also a lot of providers that will give you an excellent solution for a lot less than you are expecting. Find a solution that works for you, they have a good history, they offer a flexible solution and you like them because you might be working with them for a long time!