Why is it important to have access to a comfortable disaster recovery site?

Disaster Recovery: More important than ever

It has been a difficult period for businesses across the world. Every industry has met unexpected disasters and felt the repercussions.

In Australia, businesses have had a difficult time managing wildfires and extreme flooding on the east coast, the global financial repercussions of COVID-19, to now planning for potential cyclones. These disasters have put pressure on business continuity experts forcing them to redevelop business continuity plans including reviewing the increasing likelihood of a disaster leaving offices unusable.

In an event of a disaster, a business’s office could be severely damaged therefore forcing its employees to use a designated Disaster Recovery (DR) site. A DR site is a dedicated location where a company can temporarily relocate following a physical or digital disaster. When choosing a business continuity partner, it is important to consider what is critical for your business. The common top three things to consider when reviewing a site are its amenities, security and flexibility.

1. Finding comfort in a disaster

Disasters are disruptive for any business and require a high level of effort and planning managing staff outside your regular office space. Declaring a disaster is stressful and therefore you should make it a priority to find a DR site that feels welcome and comfortable. You can’t expect your employees to be productive if they are in a confined and old-fashioned environment.

In addition to our general buildings, it is important for your facility to offer additional amenities that would be used by your staff. This includes shared and private suites, bookable meeting rooms, clean and modern breakout and meal areas, easy car parking and public transport access. You should also consider if your chosen site is accessible site has a meeting room especially suited for large meetings that require video capabilities. You have access to these rooms when you need to communicate through video conference to other sites.

2. Security

For most businesses, security is their highest priority. A company’s dedicated disaster recovery facility is housing their most precious and valuable assets – employees and data. Because of this, it is important to make sure that your chosen facility has built-in resiliency. Your chosen site should be secure, redundant, protected, fully managed, monitored and maintained. Key elements to look out for while touring are if the site is power protected with generator backup, has additional UPS backup, and of course fire detection and suppression on-site. These elements will give you the confidence that you will be able to access our site 24×7, all year round.

3. Flexibility

Having a DR site that allows flexible and scalable infrastructure enables your provider to meet any changing IT needs on-demand. Make sure your chosen site includes PCs, monitors, seats, security and resilient grade suites that can be available as soon as a disaster is declared.

How we help

Interactive has had over 30 years of experience as a business continuity service provider.

We have managed 83 disaster declarations and service 203 customers across Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, so we understand what clients want when seeking a comprehensive solution. Our facilities are designed to be generous with your staff and secure for your business. Providing you access to an in-house barista, barbecue and kitchen facilities, theatre, meeting rooms and more with the added reassurance of premier backup infrastructure and security is an element we are proud of, however, it is really our people who set us apart as a provider. They are experienced, dedicated and committed to helping.