One day, a solid disaster recovery plan could be the only thing keeping you in business. Are you ready?

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On a Friday afternoon in September 2007, a warehouse in Phoenix stacked high with pallets caught fire. Located next door was the corporate office of Knight Transportation. The news got worse when Cory Staheli, vice president of information systems, realized the company’s data center and backup generator were in a room only 100 feet away from the 3,000-degree fire. Disaster appeared imminent.

After the building was evacuated, Staheli dispatched a team member to check the data backup system. Another team member began to notify technology partners to be on standby throughout the weekend in case any data needed to be rebuilt or restored. Meanwhile, another group went to a separate building to prepare the site for relocation.

When the fire department arrived, firefighters were able to create a wall of water to protect the data center. “The data center never got above 78 degrees,” says Staheli, who knows the situation could have been much worse. “One lesson we learned is that nothing is out of the realm of possibilities.”

If a fire, earthquake, flood or vandalism suddenly wiped out your information and communications systems, every hour of downtime could draw you closer to the brink of financial ruin. Even minor incidents like power outages, sudden hardware failures or disruptions to phone and Internet connections can cost thousands in lost revenue and productivity.

One day, a disaster recovery system might be the only mechanism keeping you in business. Like an insurance policy, disaster recovery is something you pay for that you hope you never use. And like with insurance, you easily could spend many times as much as you really need in order to manage your risk. Fortunately, disaster recovery comes in many shapes and sizes, and is even a standard feature in many of the latest software products.

Redundancy, redundancy
The cost of downtime is directly proportional to a fleet’s size, so it’s not surprising that larger carriers invest major sums to minimize any downtime due to a disaster or systems failure.