Small Business Disaster Recovery Planning
It’s normal for small businesses to have a low-cost broadband connection for their office internet access. Shared by wired and Wifi devices and used to access web sites and cloud services, email and for making and receiving phone calls, Internet connectivity is something almost every organisation depends upon – it’s an “essential service”.
Thankfully total failures of low-cost broadband services for any length of time are not regular for most. But unprecedented events like a vehicle mounting the kerb and destroying an Openreach street cabinet can cause much longer outages: We’ve seen business units on an estate in Northampton lose their broadband connections for over 30 days for exactly this reason!
A failure of the actual broadband service is just one thing that can impact business operations, and no amount of shouting and foot stamping will speed up that repair process: low-cost broadband connections are backed by “relaxed” (ahem) repair response assurances. On the other hand it might be the customer premises equipment (CPE) – the router or Ethernet switch that fails. This is not necessarily such a drama when you have an Argos or PC-World nearby, but if it’s a more advanced setup with a Firewall or Security Appliance, Wifi Access Points or an office that depends upon a point-to-point link between two buildings that experiences a failure, these devices may take longer to replace to restore service.
We do our best to encourage clients to think about Disaster Recovery (DR) from the outset, by considering how an Internet connection failure would affect them. We don’t expect a small business to have money to spend on duplicating connections, having “carrier diversity” and a backup/redundant router or firewall. It may not be the internet connection or firewall that fails, it might be a site power failure or a building/infrastructure fault that means the business has to shut down its premises and stay away for a period of time. Consider what happened in 2020, with the response to COVID19 – closing down offices and requiring staff to isolate - a plan that very few people ever considered necessary. The risk of data loss due to cybersecurity breaches, computer viruses and malware infections shouldn’t be ignored either.
We ask what the business needs to function: Make and receive phone calls, access email, use supplier portals and customer databases. The ability to process credit card payments and access banking facilities… are common answers. We then suggest considering what the cost to the business would be if it couldn’t do those things for an hour, two hours, four hours, a day, several days or even a week or longer. By gaining a shared understanding of what could bring the business to its knees we can discuss ways to minimise this risk.
Comgenial’s expertise in Telecommunications and Connectivity means we have a wealth of knowledge and experience installing reliable connections and phone services for organisations of all sizes, from sole traders and micro businesses to large global enterprises. We supply excellent “on premise” and Cloud hosted products and services, backed by the best providers, but it would be reckless to promise that any of these would be fault-free for the entirety of their life. We will talk openly and honestly about what could go wrong and recommend complimentary services that could provide backup and resilience if a failure did occur.
If you would like to have a chat about what can be done to add resilience to your business's phone service or connectivity, reach out to Comgenial on 01604 355885 or email help@comgenial.com