An interruption to your business doesn’t have to be catastrophic to cause a loss of revenue. Even a power outage can have its consequences. Hitches and hiccups have to be planned for because, when they happen, valuable time is spent finding and fixing the problem. Don’t underestimate the expense of downtime—idle employees and diminished service to customers are high costs. Take a boy scout’s advice, and be prepared.
There are a variety of approaches to business continuance and the one you choose will depend on the size of your company, the type of business you run, and what functions you deem to be essential. The safest solution, if you absolutely can’t afford downtime, might be a fully redundant data center that you can switch to during an interruption. This offers high availability and can practically negate the effects of most hiccups. Smaller businesses, however, often require a more cost-effective answer. To [...]