Back-up for blackouts

London Calling

By Startups.co.uk • Get more from this author

Posted in Small Biz, 2nd September 2003 11:26 GMT

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The UK’s small businesses are being warned to take heed of last week’s London power cut by ensuring their computer systems are backed up.

Last Thursday’s blackout, while nowhere near on the scale of recent power failures in New York and Canade, left many businesses in the south east without power for more than 30 minutes, rendering some computer systems unusable.

Even a short spell without computer systems can affect profits but the unexpected loss of data and information can be devastating, especially for small businesses.

As a result firms are being urged to ensure their systems are fully backed-up so that data can be retrieved in the case of another blackout, and are also being advised to considered investing in back-up power supplies.

Anthony Foy, group MD of data centre firm Interxion, said: “UK businesses without back up power for their computer systems need to take last week’s power outage in London and the south east as a very serious warning that their operational resilience is under threat.

“With blackouts becoming more common, firms must plan to keep ecommerce and IT systems up and running during such power outages.

“Businesses with effective risk management processes in place, with back-up generators and with mirrored IT systems in different locations, will find that power outages in one town or country will not cripple their operations.”