Occasionally we encounter an issue that by its very nature acts as a better advert for our services than our marketing team could ever devise. That aside, the following serves as a valuable case study for anyone who has a vested interest in business IT.
On Friday night we received an alert at 9pm that told us a customer’s server had gone offline. We had a look remotely and discovered that their internet was completely offline. We contacted the internet provider who told us that there was a localised fault in the physical location of the business which was affecting several companies in the area.
Early on Monday we made a call to the customer who told us that a drunk driver had crashed into the BT pole, completely knocking it down into the middle of the road.
This meant the customer was left without any telephones or internet. Within an hour, BT Openreach arrived and advised the client that it would be at least 3 weeks before the service was restored. This was potentially devastating for business. Like most companies, the customer is heavily reliant on the internet and obviously without phones either, their business doesn’t exist as far as the outside world is concerned.
We knew something had to be done quickly, so we used our Disaster Recovery package to get the ball rolling. We had a backup internet connection via a USB dongle but unfortunately their rural location made for a poor signal. Time was of the essence and we advised the customer to move to a temporary office. We knew we could pull out all the stops and get them moved over quickly from an IT perspective as we had chosen a perfect mix of cloud and on-premise services, such as Office 365 and Windows Essentials 2012. All we had to do was move their computers and server to a place that had phones and an adequate internet connection.
Thanks to the lovely people at Bruntwood (a property company specialising in retail and office space), we managed to get a suite on flexible terms and by Tuesday afternoon had our client up and running and their business functioning normally.
Here are our tips to best prepare for this and similar situations:
1. Make sure you have Business Continuity Insurance
2. Make sure said insurance has cover for loss of communications
3. Have a disaster recovery plan (we write these as a matter of course for all our customers)
4. Choose the right technologies that will help in those situations e.g. Windows 365
5. Be prepared to act quickly and decisively
6. Make sure it’s easy for you to divert phone numbers (cloud based telephone systems help massively here)
We suspect it will take BT 6-8 weeks to repair the damage but now we and our client have the invaluable benefit being able to work normally whilst we wait.
EverythingTech offer Disaster Recovery, IT Services and Support in Manchester. If you think that you and your business maybe under-prepared for the unpredictable events that can befall any company, get in touch today to discuss your options and possible Disaster Recovery plans. Never underestimate the benefit of working with peace of mind! We believe we offer the best IT support in Manchester and would love the opportunity to prove it to you.
The Everything Tech team
