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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…
According to Mlive.com, Michigan ranked fourth in the country for new major corporate facilities and expansions in 2012. Site Selection magazine’s annual Governor’s Cup reports that Michigan increased from 85 qualified new building/expansion projects in 2011 to 337 in 2012 (nearly 300 percent), preceded by Pennsylvania, Ohio and Texas. Site Selection is a corporate real estate strategy and area economic development magazine, the official publication of the Industrial Asset Management Council. Qualified new projects must involve an investment of $1 million or more, create at least 50 new jobs or add 20,000 square feet of new floor area, according to Mlive.com. Earlier this year, the publication reported on Online Tech’s planned investment in the Flint, Michigan area – in addition to the $1 million investment a year ago, we will be investing another $1 million in our Mid-Michigan data center once operated by General Motors Co. for their disaster recovery facility. The top metropolitan areas in Michigan contributing to the increase in the new and expanded facilities rate include Detroit, Grand Rapids, Battle Creek, Jackson and Saginaw. According to the Associated Press, GM is currently seeking tax abatements for a 100,000 square foot data center in Oakland County worth $258…
Michigan state officials and CIO/security officers from major Southeast Michigan businesses are combining efforts to formulate a disaster recovery response plan in the event of a cyber attack. An increasing number of recent private and public sector attacks have heightened the importance of cyber security awareness and remediation readiness. Chief Security Officer Dan Lohrmann told Crain’s Detroit that the plan (to be made public later this spring) would: First, categorize and define the cyber attack by – Statewide disruption Large region disruption Affects more than one company Consider other risk factors, including – Extent of financial impact on the state Affects a critical need, such as electricity or water The plan also addresses – How to bring utility services back online A phone network and critical contact plan According to Crain’s Detroit, the Michigan government’s website suffered from a denial-of-service (DoS) attack just last fall. There are additional concerns around attacks potentially targeting chemical, oil, electric grid or power plant companies, as they comprise some of the most critical infrastructure sustaining our society. Information that could be targeted includes tax records, agency credit cardholder data and health records. While industry security standards are widely known for any company that deals…
We’re hosting a three-part webinar series on the topic of IT disaster recovery. If you missed the first webinar, watch a video recording below on Business Continuity in Lean Times: View the slides here. Join Online Tech’s System Support Manager Steve Aiello as he leads the second webinar, Disaster Recovery in Depth. Register for this webinar online. In this webinar, we’ll transition from theory and thought processes into practical application of disaster recovery. We will cover various disaster response options that will cover: Hidden Benefits of BC / DR planning Disaster Case Studies Staffing / Facilities Recovery Strategies Processes organizational design Facilities design that facilities DR IT tools available to increase availability About Steven Aiello Steven Aiello is a Systems Support Manager with Online Tech, the Midwest’s premier managed data center operator. His certifications include CISSP (Certified Information System Security Professional), ISACA CISA, VMware VCP ( VMware Certified Professional), Cisco CCNA ( Cisco Certified Network Associate), Comptia Security+, and Certified Incident Responder (New Mexico Tech). Check out these resources on disaster recovery: IT Disaster Recovery Case Studies Online Tech has provided a variety of IT disaster recovery services for companies in diverse industries requiring continous data protection and application availability….
Gigaom.com reports that the greatest amount of data centers are located, most inconveniently, in states that have also experienced the greatest number of FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) disaster declarations. Coincidence? Not really – data centers can be found closer to their core user base, so population size will often dictate the number of data centers. Which states are hit the hardest? Texas declared 332 disasters (location of more than 120 data centers), and California came in second at 211 (greater than 160 data centers). Oklahoma was next at 167, and Oregon, New York, Washington and Florida declared between 75-130 disasters. A FEMA disaster declaration is classified when a natural disaster forces a state governor to ask the federal government to step in with assistance due to lack of state and local resources. What does this mean for data centers? A recent NYTimes.com article reports metropolitan building developers are revamping their floorplans as they relocate generators and mechanical systems typically housed in basements of tall buildings. One building moved their backup generator to the rooftop to avoid flood damage. Another has plans for 13-foot floodgates from the basement to the second floor to keep electrical systems dry in the event…
On Tuesday, January 15th, 2pm EST, Online Tech’s Systems Support Manager Steve Aiello, CISSP will be doing the first installment of our three-part webinar series on Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery. I had the opportunity to speak with Steve about what drove his interest in business continuity. He says his love of IT came out of compliance. Much of his career has been spent working closely with auditors, and having extensive compliance training. As this grew into an interest in cybersecurity, Steve saw a broader perspective: “Cybersecurity gets all the press, but it’s just a small piece of protecting a business. No firewall will save you from fire, flooding, or a flu epidemic that keeps your workers out of the office.” Forty percent of businesses don’t reopen after a disaster. Twenty-five percent more fail within a year, according to FEMA. With those unlikely odds, a business continuity plan, including a disaster recovery guideline, can help keep businesses out of that dark statistic. But say you don’t live in tornado alley. Say you don’t have to worry about earthquakes, flooding, hurricanes, forest fires. There isn’t a blatant disaster threatening your business. A business continuity plan is more than just recovering from…
What better way to wrap up 2012 and kick off the new year than a free, informational webinar on business continuity and IT disaster recovery? Join Online Tech’s Systems Support Manager Steve Aiello as he leads a three-part webinar series on the topic of disaster recovery. Register for all three webinars online now! Title: Business Continuity in Lean Times When: January 15th, 2013 @ 2P.M. E.T. Description: Businesses have a responsibility to their stakeholders to think about their long-term viability – join Steve as he provides an overview of disaster recovery and business continuity with real company examples and the benefits of developing a business continuity plan. Speaker: Steven Aiello, Systems Support Manager, Online Tech Steven Aiello is a Systems Support Manager with Online Tech, the Midwest’s premier managed data center operator. His certifications include CISSP (Certified Information System Security Professional), ISACS CISA, VMware VCP ( VMware Certified Professional), Cisco CCNA ( Cisco Certified Network Associate), Comptia Security+, and Certified Incident Responder (New Mexico Tech). Disaster recovery (DR) is a subset of an overall business continuity plan. Find out more about disaster recovery by reading up on our many different DR topics: Michigan Data Centers: Building Reliable Infrastructure to Strengthen…
Looks like umbrellas and raincoats are on call for Pacific Northwest residents as multiple storms have dumped up to 20 inches of rain over the past week. This area is facing flash flood warnings and wind gusts up to 60 to 80 mph. Now officials are keeping an eye on hillsides that are prone to mudslides. As we watched severe storms hit both the East and West coasts this fall, the Midwest is enjoying warmer than normal temperatures. Unfortunately, data centers are extremely vulnerable to natural disasters such as severe storms and flooding. Flooding can leave areas uninhabitable for days or weeks until the water recedes, making an IT disaster recovery/business continuity plan necessary to avoid major data loss or extreme downtime. As IT departments develop disaster recovery/business continuity plans, they are looking for data centers in low-risk geographical locations. If we look at NOAA’s (National Oceanic and Atomspheric Administration) statistics for Weather/Climate Disasters, Michigan is one of the few states that have only seen between 1 to 8 natural disasters from 1980 to 2011. According to FEMA’s Michigan Disaster History, the last Michigan flooding declaration was in 2008. I’ve have spoken to many customers located in coastal regions, such…
A solid backup and disaster recovery plan is essential to long-term Michigan business success – in the event of a disaster, your business can’t afford to lose valuable data and applications. As critical functions of our businesses rely heavily on the Internet and applications to operate on a day-to-day basis, a disaster recovery plan is also critical to maintaining the availability of websites and entire network systems. What should you look for in a Michigan disaster recovery provider and plan? Strategic location: Planning a Michigan disaster recovery strategy should include the location of your data center and production site – outsourcing your disaster recovery to a local Michigan hosting provider is ideal. With data centers located 53 miles apart on separate utility power grids that are connected with Gigabit fiber, Online Tech offers the ideal solution for both high availability production and disaster recovery sites. We provide warm site failover capability with high speed data replication and synchronization of your production servers at one data center with your disaster recovery servers at our other data center. Risk of natural disaster: Michigan also offers a unique geographical advantage, or alternative, for companies that need to host their data in a state…
No company is exempt from a disaster. Google has had outages in their Docs, Gmail, and other applications that have affected millions of users who use their services on an everyday basis. In April 2011, Sony was attacked when hackers got access to over 77 million users’ personal information, including credit card numbers through its PSN Network. Big or small, it’s inevitable that your company will experience some sort of disaster in its lifetime. However, having a plan in place can determine if you’ll be operational after the fact. Here are some IT disaster recovery statistics: Less than 50% of all organizations have a business continuity plan in place. 43% of companies that do have a business continuity plan do not test it annually. 50% of businesses experiencing a computer outage will be forced to close within five years. 90% of businesses losing data from a disaster are forced to shut down within two years. There are many different kinds of disaster recovery options (Onsite/Offsite Backup, Cold/Warm/Hot Site DR, SAN-to-SAN Replication, DR Now!) that can accommodate organizational needs. Each one of these options have their pros and cons, but having any sort of option in place is better than no…