There’s More to Business Continuity Than Backing Up Data

Published on MSP-PR.COM

In January 2012, tornadoes wreaked havoc in Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee, which may call to mind the Mother’s Day tornado outbreak across Bibb, Laurens and several other central Georgia counties in 2008. June 2012 brought the wrath of tropical storm Debby to residents of southern Georgia and Florida. At the beginning of July, Colorado Springs residents finally got a reprieve from the wildfires that erupted on Jun. 23 and consumed hundreds of homes and claimed at least one life. Of course, disasters affect businesses, too.

“Bad weather happens. Disaster happens,” said Brian Betzel, Infinity Network Solutions’ executive vice-president, in a telephone interview. “A lot of people think it won’t happen to them, and most people would be right. But some people are wrong. If you happen to be wrong, how are you going to be prepared to pick up the pieces of your business when that time comes?”

In the wake of these recent disasters, a lot of business owners discovered why every company, regardless of size or industry, needs to have an established, regularly tested business continuity (aka disaster recovery) plan in place long before it has to be implemented.

One key ingredient to an effective business continuity plan is virtualization, but not everyone fully understands what virtualization is and how it could help business operations. So, Macon, Georgia-based I.T. services provider Infinity Network Solutions developed Heroes, Villains & Virtualization, the latest in the company’s series of fun, informative TechTartare events. Heroes, Villains & Virtualization is scheduled to take place on July 26, 2012, at 2:30 pm in the Amstar Cinema.

The 2008 Mother’s Day tornado outbreak served as a wakeup call for Betzel and the rest of the Infinity Network Solutions team. Although Betzel and his brother, Robert, Infinity’s CEO, had taken the time to back up all of the company’s data, they hadn’t created a business continuity plan that all employees knew about and could implement in a moment’s notice.

“There’s probably a lot of people, whose businesses get affected by disasters, who maybe don’t have in place some kind of plan to recover, or at least more quickly, than they otherwise would, and a lot of those businesses, as a result, don’t come back,” said Betzel.

After taking steps to resolve that issue for themselves, the Infinity decided to not only recommend business continuity plans to all of their clients but also assist in developing them. But they didn’t stop there.

Helping local business owners prepare for disasters and other disruptions such as downed power lines or telephone lines, blocked roadways and other common hindrances to business continuity plays a large role in the lives of the Infinity Network Solutions team, hence the creation of Heroes, Villains & Virtualization in addition to previous TechTartare events like Sushi & Secure Networks, which the team hosted in March 2012.

“The most important thing is that people take care of themselves. That’s the number one thing. Once people have done that, and they try to get back to normalcy, they find out if they have adequately protected their businesses,” Betzel said.

The Heroes, Villains and Virtualization event is open to business owners, information technology managers, business and practice managers and will focus on building out and demonstrating the key components of an efficient data center for running an organization’s technology.

One thing that sets the July 26th event apart from previous events is that attendees will get to view a free screening of director Christopher Nolan’s new film “The Dark Knight Rises.” One thing that remains the same is that one lucky person will go home that night with a free Apple iPad2.

Anyone who is interested in registering for or learning more about the upcoming event can do so by visiting Infinity Network Solutions’ TechTartare website at http://www.techtartare.com