Network Disaster Preparedness Tips

With the winter season approaching, big storms bringing everything from heavy rain and lightning to snow and wind will be a constant threat to network operations. When was the last time your local IT team reviewed disaster preparedness procedures? Now is a great time to start. If any form of a disaster hits, do you or your team know your capabilities and how to react? Here are some important questions that your IT team should be able to answer and use to improve your disaster procedures:

  

1. Are you aware of your power situation?
a. What happens when a power outage occurs?
b. What is the operational status of the UPS system?
c. How long will the UPS backup systems sustain key functions?
d. What do we do if the outage is longer?

2. What if the building becomes unavailable? (fire or water damage)
a. Are the offsite backups current?
b. If a network device or server is ruined, what is the procedure to replace it?
c. Does everyone know the primary and secondary facility contacts to use should an after-hours emergency occur?

3. What if access to the building is limited? (snow, tornado warnings, etc)
a. Is VPN access updated for all employees that may need to work from home?
b. Can all of the required maintenance procedures be done remotely or skipped for several days?

4. What if the phone and/or Internet connection is lost?

5. What is the customer impact when any of these conditions occur?

Advance planning is the best approach. A good network design can minimize the impact of storm and disaster related problems. Having redundant phone and data lines from different carriers minimizes the inbound/outbound traffic risk. Using an adequate number of UPS devices mitigates all but very lengthy power outages and network routing protocols like HSRP reduce the risk of single device point of failures.

Even monitoring your network with disaster prevention in mind can be helpful in avoiding unnecessary failures. These tips are a great starting point:

1. Enable redundant polling of critical devices
2. Map out HSRP primary and secondary links
3. Know the status of the UPS systems
4. Make sure you have 24x7 access to your management system client

 If you have tips for network disaster prepardeness, please share them with us.