CIOs Riding on Hurricane Sandy

Bangalore: Nature has its own way of making a statement, and when it does, we have to abide by it. CIOs have taken it a step further by contemplating on it and that too in a smart way, i.e. by storing back-ups of all the relevant and critical information. Still, the latest onslaught in the form of Hurricane Sandy has exposed a few loop-holes that will force CIOs to think upon, reports Michael Hickins of WSJ.

Although,  most of the companies averted economic loss by acting wisely and by creating duplicates of their data, email systems etc and storing them on a remote location away from their primary data centers. There are few companies that felt the impact of Sandy as they realized that their systems were inaptly designed to confront a disaster of such magnitude.

Some of the companies confronted issues pertaining to locations that denied the employees the much felt diversity while others realized that they were incapable to access the ‘backed-up’ data via internet, software or mobile devices.

Keeping in mind the inaccessibility of the sites as well as the safety of the concerned people, the majority of the exchanges preferred to remain shut. However, Alex Tabb, partner at financial and technology consulting firm Tabb Group pointed out, “[Financial institutions] invested a lot of money to create business continuity plans, and…technologically these institutions are entirely capable of running in the aftermath of a storm like Sandy.”

Of course that being said, one has to acknowledge the irrefutable importance of business continuity and grant customers the power to conduct business – anytime and anywhere. In this regard, Hurricane Sandy had a few lessons to teach with respect to duplication of software based phone system and creating data centers at more viable locations.

And CIOs, who are pioneers in evolving and adapting, it can be assumed that they will eventually overcome this hurdle too that the nature places before them.