Solution Providers Prepare for Wilma

Solution providers in South Florida are once again preparing customers and their own companies for a hurricane, this time Wilma, which is projected to hit the area later this weekend.

At least one solution providers, Miami-based 4IT, has become such an expert at business continuity preparation that they have the process down pat. After all, they’ve had a lot of experience.

“Well, this is about the fourth or fifth time this year,” said Alex Freund, president of 4IT, with a laugh. “For Wilma, we’re lucky. Business owners can get a full work day in [Friday] and we can do the shutdown procedure after 5 p.m. We’ll have enough time because we’re not supposed to get hit until late Sunday if at all.”

4IT starts the process of getting customers ready about 36 hours before the storm, but some of the work is done in the final hours leading up to an evacuation, Freund said.

“The storm’s gotta be close to a day away. From a political standpoint, most [end user] companies don’t do anything until a hurricane warning is up, so you can’t get too heavy on the prep side,” Freund said.

Most preparations are done well before a storm comes, he said.

“You should have a good disaster recovery plan written down already and gone over it with a customer that defines who does what, what supplies are needed and the timeline for what needs to be done,” he said.

“A lot of our customers' office buildings close when a warning goes up, so you might have 6 to 8 hours before the building closes," he said.

4IT asks customers to shut down their own workstations and place the systems, UPSes and any other electronics on top of their desks and cover them with plastic in case the ceiling leaks.

“We do the same thing with their laser printers or other valuable external peripherals. They are disconnected from the network and power,” Freund said. “At the last possible time, usually at the end of the last work day before a hurricane shows up, then we shut the servers down, the network gear down. Up until that point, people can use e-mail from home or get other work done. Servers and the phone systems are the last things.”

The solution provider backs up two copies of the data, one for the owner and one that 4IT takes.

“In some cases we move servers if they’re on movable racks to rooms with no windows. And you don’t want them on the top floor or the bottom floor,” Freund said. “It’s a fair amount of work, but part is usually well-written ahead of time, responsibilities are previously assigned. That process is in place.”

4IT will perform the shutdowns for about 30 of its 160 accounts, Freund said. The majority are very small businesses that can do it themselves, he said.

“The good news is most of it is relatively quick. We can do a full shut down in half an hour to an hour.

Although it sounds like 4IT has found a business continuity preparation niche, Freund said it is still a small part of its overall business.

August’s Hurricane Katrina has created more interest from customers in setting up remote locations in other parts of the United States, Freund said.

“We just got a $23,000 project one of our clients to do their disaster recovery backup in their New Jersey office. They already purchased an additional server, they’re putting in 2 T1s, so that their facility in Miami worked and would be ready to roll over, to the minute, to New Jersey with the flip of one switch,” Freund said.

“We’re finding more small businesses willing to make that kind of financial commitment vs. their IT getting knocked out for six weeks. For a lot of these companies, six weeks of lost business would be disastrous. If you’re doing $3 million to $5 million a year, $23,000 is nothing.”

“Anbody doing decent disaster recovery plans should already have good backups, ranging from yesterday to a month back and have it backed up offiste already. It’s a one-time consulting piece to come up with a disaster recovery plan. With 9/11 and earthquakes and flooding and other challenges, it’s something you continually face and you better be ready. If you’ve been in business 10 years on computers, sooner or later you’ll have one [a disaster].”