It’s Tornado Season. Is Your Data Safe?

Spring is slowly starting here in Michigan. The snow is finally melting, and the sun is able to warm me up enough to not need my winter jacket. I don’t think I’m making too big a leap when I say that pretty much everyone’s ready for it.

However, with that warmer weather and the many changes likely to follow, it’s time to think about one of the most important natural disasters that come with this time of year. Last week was National Severe Storm Preparedness Week, according to the National Weather Service. Also, farther south, March marks the beginning of tornado season (which will stretch until mid-summer or even later in some parts of the United States).

Even with last year’s tornado season being mild compared to the years immediately preceding it, there were still 154 storms in March alone, with a grand total of 939 throughout the whole year. Most of these storms come from ‘tornado alley’, the colloquial term for many of the states between the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachian Mountains that receive approximately 90% of the US tornado total every year. With such a severe threat to people and businesses in the area, it’s important that people be prepared for the potential of a severe storm threat.

Part of severe weather preparedness for a business owner should be having a good business continuity and an IT disaster recovery plan in place. These are natural occurrences that give little to no warning, and can cause a significant amount of damage. Having an IT disaster recovery implementation allows a company to lower downtime in the event of a disaster, and having an offsite backup can help ensure that whatever disaster took down the production environment will not affect the backup.

For cloud users, disaster recovery can be even more convenient. With the ability to spin up servers in just a few minutes, this option can minimize downtime even more. The costs are low as well; a cloud disaster recovery option costs about half as much as the production environment.

Online Tech gets the benefit of location, too. With locations in Mid-Michigan and Ann Arbor, the instance of tornadoes are much lower than other places in the United States. Our locations are an optimal 53 miles apart, connected to separate power grids, and have multiple ISPs to help keep our data safe and available in the event that there is an event near one of our locations.

Just like you would keep your family safe in the event of severe weather by putting a plan in place ahead of time, it’s important to think now about what to do if your company is hit by an unplanned disaster. It helps make sure all policies and procedures are understood, as well as allowing everyone the ability to sleep a little easier knowing you’ve got a plan to keep your company safe.

We very recently did a three-part webinar series regarding business continuity and disaster recovery. If you missed it and would like to hear more, you can listen to them here.