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Are Your IT Systems Ready For Hurricane Season?

June 8, 2020 | By: Scott Lard

Hurricane season, which is categorized as June to November, has arrived. Throughout these months, hurricanes and tropical storms bring potentially dangerous and destructive weather to coastlines across the country. It is absolutely critical that businesses of all sizes and industries approach this time of year with a variety of risk mitigation tactics, safety protocols, and infrastructural support systems before dangerous weather becomes a threat.

In addition to ensuring the safety of their team members, property, and physical assets, business owners must ensure the security and infrastructure of their IT equipment, systems, and digital assets throughout hurricane season. They must also prepare for remote business operations in the event offices are inaccessible.  

Early preparedness, physical security measures, and partnering with a managed services provider for IT system infrastructural support are all essential to keeping people and businesses safe from the damaging effects and losses of tropical storms and hurricanes.

IT Systems Hurricane Ready

Know the Risks

The key to being as prepared as possible for hurricanes and tropical storms is to understand the threat these storms pose. Depending on location, businesses can face a variety of weather hazards throughout hurricane season, including:

  • Storm surges
  • Flash flooding
  • Excessive rainfall
  • Tornadoes
  • Extreme winds
  • Power outages

In addition to these general risks, businesses should assess the threats that may be unique to their property or employees, such as an inability to get employees home safely or being located in a flood zone. Assess evacuation protocols, enact company-wide emergency policies, and act early in the event of a hurricane warning.

IT System Physical Protection

The first step in securing IT infrastructure in the event of a hurricane is to physically protect IT equipment such as servers, desktops, and other devices. These steps can include:

  • Relocate devices off-site to safe locations where possible
  • If relocation is not an option, elevate devices higher than potential flood levels
  • Anchor racks and IT hardware to protect against high winds
  • Board up windows with plywood
  • Utilize surge protectors
  • Manually power off systems and disable restart features to prevent electric shorts in the event of water damage

In addition to physically protecting IT equipment, businesses should also partner with a reputable, experienced managed IT services provider who can ensure their data and IT infrastructure is supported and protected throughout hurricane season. 

Backup & Disaster Recovery Preparedness

In the event of a hurricane or major tropical storm, general backups are not enough. Businesses need the peace of mind of tested and verified backups which encompass all company data, including network servers and all employee desktops. The only way to ensure the safety and security of business data is to have a full disaster recovery plan in place, complete with regular backups, off-site data storage, and restore procedures.

A BDR, or backup/disaster recovery system is the ideal choice, as it does more than simply create a backup of a business’s data – it acts a complete, fail-safe IT system protection solution in the event of a major disaster like a hurricane. A reliable BDR solution incrementally backs up company data and server information, encrypts it, and stores it at multiple secure, off-site data centers complete with ironclad emergency measures in place to protect data. In the event of a server malfunction, a BDR solution will virtually maintain the role of a business’s server while continuing its incremental backups to ensure things are up and running and files are accessible even while server repairs are in progress.

Not only does a BDR solution allow for files and business data to be accessible at all times, it also ensures quick restoration in the event of a disaster. The aftermath of a hurricane can be devastating, but with a BDR solution in place, businesses can get their IT systems up and running quickly and easily.

Remote IT Helpdesk & Support

Beyond data backup and recovery plans, businesses also must address how they will work, access their network systems, and communicate with their employees in the event of a natural disaster. Hurricanes and tropical storms can cause flash flooding and damage to roadways, which makes having a remote operations contingency plan a must for any business. A remote IT helpdesk and support team can create a remote working plan for workers and provide much-needed IT support to ensure systems are up and running. This can include setting up remote desktops or VPNs for working from home and methods for accessing critical network systems.

The benefits of having IT support and helpdesk services during an emergency weather situation also apply to the recovery period following a tropical storm or hurricane. In the aftermath of a hurricane, businesses will need assistance getting their regular day-to-day systems up and running. IT professionals with experience in navigating these situations can help streamline the process and ensure teams are back to normal as swiftly as possible.

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