When bad weather is moving into your area, making sure your technology is safe is probably not at the forefront of your thoughts. It is obviously most important to make sure that you and your employees are safe, but the next thought should be protecting your technology and data.
Bad weather can cause real havoc to your technical environment. Make sure you are prepped for any weather situation by following these key steps.
- Environmental Detection Systems- humidity and heat can prevent your technology from functioning properly. Implement sensors to alert you when there is to much moisture or heat in your server room.
- Install surge protectors throughout the office.
- Have servers plugged into UPSs to keep the servers running in the case of a power outage. Make sure to test UPS regularly and replace the batteries as needed.
- If possible, stop working, turn off and unplug devices. This will minimize the possibility of the devices being affected by a power surge.
- If you are unable to stop working, make sure to regularly save your work to prevent loss.
- Make sure to have an effective backup solution that replicates to the cloud. If there was a flood, tornado or fire, and the physical location is compromised, the data will still be safe and accessible from the cloud.
- It is also a good idea to keep all computers, servers and other devices off the floor. If water makes it into your location, your devices may be salvageable if they are sitting off the ground.
- Develop a disaster recovery plan that covers everything from different weather situations to ransomware attacks. Having this plan will help move the process along in a very stressful and confusing time. To better understand what is needed in a Disaster Recovery Plan, please refer to our Disaster Recovery Services.
Taking the time to understand how your company could be affected by bad weather is an important step for any business. If you need some guidance on the technical piece, we would be happy to discuss it with you and your team