We gave this talk to a great reception at the Business and Technology Show at Aintree, October 2013. Using a variety of images and facts we aim to shock businesses into reviewing their Disaster Recovery plans. The winter is coming, and it promises to be a bad one. No hard sell here, just hard facts.

1. It’s Snow Joke; Protecting your business from Acts of
God, Mother Nature and IT Failure

2. Disaster happens

3. Would you know
where to start in any
of these situations?
What are your competitors doing?

4. And it’s not just Mother Nature…
• Cyber attacks/hacking - Every minute, of every hour, of ever day, a major financial
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institution is under attack – Telegraph, 2013
Security attacks/breaches – can be physical or virtual
Viruses – ‘viruses are becoming much more targeted and clever’ - John Pescatore, Director of
SANS
IT/system failure – one in five businesses will suffer from some form of IT/system failure
Terrorism – the number of people arrested for suspected terror-related offences in England,
Scotland and Wales rose last year – Metropolitan Police
Theft - from 2012 onwards the number of people prepared to take the risks to steal cable has
increased by 50% - British Transport Police
Fire –uncontrollable, unpredictable can happen to anyone at any time
Building collapse - late payments in the construction industry are causing cash-starved subcontractors to cut corners when building offices – Real Business
IT glitches – some industries simply can not afford to suffer from a ‘glitch’ including airlines
and healthcare
Disease/illness – what would you do if your staff couldn’t get into work?
Strikes – can be a mass staff walk out for you, or can stop your staff from doing their jobs i.e.
tube strikes
Disruptive events – i.e. the Olympics, big national events can wreak havoc on businesses
and even network usage

5. "Despite the number of very public disasters since 9/11 and
7/7, still only about 50% of companies report having a
disaster recovery plan. Of those that do, nearly half have
never tested their plan, which is tantamount to not having
one at all."

6. Rise of the 24 hour nation
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We now rely on technology and IT more than
ever, this reliance will only increase
Mobile technology and wireless ways of
working means we now operate 24 hours a day
with businesses needing to maintain an
‘always-on presence’
Modern customers want information and
service as and when they want it, they are not
prepared to wait
Technology has and continues to advance, DR is
not the same as it was 10 years ago – it had to
adapt to a nation that is constantly switched on
Disaster recovery is now more important than ever and
will only increase in importance the more we rely on
technology systems and automation to run our businesses

7. So, what is DR?
Working to minimise the effects of a disaster to ensure your
organisation will be able to maintain, or quickly resume, missioncritical IT functions. Including providing access to company data,
applications and ensuring calls are still answered.
DR is NOT the same as Business Continuity
• Business continuity is proactive – keeping systems and overall
business operations working whatever the weather
• Disaster recovery is reactive – these are the steps you take to
resume business after a disruptive event
• Both signify a need for the RIGHT tech and comms solutions to
minimise most threats to your business

8. Plan, review and implement
DR strategies need to encompass continuation through any fatality, we
look to the core tech on every site including:
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NGNs
Lines/SIP
Systems
Connectivity
Mobile
DR on top of DR on top of DR…
• The Cloud/virtual DR – guaranteed
resolution time faster than traditional
solutions
• Offshore DR – back up and then back
up again!
Of the 50% of businesses that do
have a DR plan in place, almost half
admit to not knowing how to execute it
in the event of disaster – or even
where to start

9. October 2013
Already we have seen two disastrous events with poor planning and costly
consequences
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One of the UK’s largest health
organisations was out of action
for nearly 48 hours after an ‘IT
glitch’
Lives were put at risk as 7,000
patients were unable to seek
treatment
48 hours recovery time is simply
not acceptable in the modern
age, which shows a lack of a
clear DR procedure
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One of the UK’s largest retailers
suffered problems with their
MPLS network causing them to
close the store for one day. They
were unable to open tills or take
card payments
The retailer reported a loss of
£1m from less than 24 hours
Auto-failover does exist for card
payments and can be switched
to another network should the
primary network fail
Shows clear lack of procedure
Whether small or large, disasters can be as simple as staff not being able to get into
work or as large as a building fire. Any will have cost implications to your company.
What is your strategy?

10. Get rid of the ‘it won’t happen
to me attitude’
The disruption of snow and floods at its worst
peak last year led to employers losing an
estimated £318million (Green Flag
Breakdown).
In total, 8.5 million UK residents were unable to make it
through their traditional working hours, causing 51.4
million lost working hours in the last seven days. A
further 19% of staff claimed they were too scared to take
to the road during the icy weather.
Four out of five of the wettest years
on record have occurred since the
millennium. This trend of extreme
rainfall will continue into the next
decade. (The Met Office)

11. Ask yourself: Are you ready?
Four out of five of the wettest years on
record have occurred since the
millennium. This trend of extreme
rainfall will continue into the next
decade. (The Met Office)

12. •We currently keep more than 3,000 UK businesses
connected 24 hours a day
•We provide disaster recovery with EVERY solution whilst
reducing costs and increasing productivity – ‘growth by
communications’
•We are the only unified communications provider to be
ranked four times by the Sunday Times Tech Track,
recognising the UK’s fastest growing technology
companies
Worried?
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We will offer you sound advice on DR planning as well as advising on, reviewing and helping
you test any existing DR plans you may have
Contact us now and tell us what systems you use and how much data you have and we can
calculate your risk and loss

13. Thanks for watching
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