Automation: Keeping your system intact and accessible in a crisis

I recently heard some first-hand observations of agents who were victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita last summer, and it gave me food for thought. Some agents experienced property damage and loss of data they hadn’t anticipated, as 30-foot storm surges sent waves as far as six miles inland. One vendor noted that many of its agency customers kept their back-up data offsite but only a few miles from their main offices, and both locations sustained hurricane damage. As a result, those agencies lost valuable data and had difficulty resuming their normal operations, despite having taken precautions to prevent just such an occurrence. So, how can agencies learn from this experience and prevent similar woes in the future?

One insurance company I know used the U.S. Postal Service as a mobile repository for its data back-up tapes. Each morning someone mailed the previous night’s tapes to someone else in a distant city, who then mailed them back to the home office. The full cycle took about one week and seemed to be a secure, reliable and effective way to protect tapes from the elements. If you can work out a similar arrangement with a friend or family member in a distant location, this model might work for you too.