Solving the 'faulty problems' riddle

London was chaos last week. Many trains were delayed or cancelled. Thousands of commuters were stranded and hundreds of schools were closed as teachers and others did not even venture out to work. The story was top news and dominated most radio and TV bulletins.

However, the cause of this major disruption to life in and around the British capital was not a natural disaster, power failure, fire, computer virus attack, or even a freshly uncovered terrorist plot. No, it was just a little snow.

Would you believe London could be disrupted by a little fall of snow?

Just three or four inches of snow in the southern parts of the unmetricated island kingdom was enough to cause about as much fuss as it does when it happens in sunny SA. A trip into central London, that had taken only 30 minutes the day before, became a full two-hour ordeal.

"Train services have been suspended due to faulty communication problems on the Bakerloo line," echoed one announcement, but before I had time to ponder the meaning of "faulty problems", other desperate commuters pressed me into a train carriage.

Would you believe London could be disrupted by a little fall of snow?

Warwick Ashford, portal managing editor

Jostling along in one of the few working and consequently jam-packed trains, my thoughts switched to the obvious lack of business continuity planning.

"Britain is not well-equipped to deal with the unusual," remarked one commuter as if he could read my thoughts. Suddenly the workings of the business continuity debate shifted into sharp focus. It is the perfect illustration of all the traditional debates on and around business continuity.

Snow in London is not unheard of, but it is apparently rather unusual. Local authorities, it seems, are unwilling to invest in expensive snow-clearing equipment and other counter-measures for those rare occasions when it does snow.

Instead, they would rather save the money and deal with the chaos as and when it happens.

The same is obviously true for many companies. Rather than make the upfront capital investment in disaster recovery plans and pay every month to keep those in place and up to date, management would rather deal with problems if and when they happen.

In London's case, the city fathers probably compared the projected cost of snow-induced disruptions with the cost of a backup plan and chose the lesser of the two evils. As the fuming frustration of commuters does not accrue as a cost to the city, it was obviously discounted.

Unfortunately, for many companies the cost analysis is unlikely to be that simple. Determining which will be the greater cost is often as difficult as trying to make sense of a riddle like "faulty problems". In other words, the cost of a risk analysis really cannot be avoided.

This snowy tale is a tale of caution. Before dismissing disaster recovery out of hand, companies should get real about the fact that in today's business climate, it can and will "snow" in the most unlikely of places.

Companies need to know the risk before they can make an informed decision about how far they need to go to protect business-critical data. In this information technology age, however, it could be argued that relatively few businesses could afford the loss of such data.

According to a 2005 study by information systems authors Stephen Haag, Maeve Cummings and Donald McCubbrey, 43% of companies that have a major loss of business-critical data never re-open, 51% close within two years, and only 6% survive long-term.

Three good reasons to think about a disaster recovery plan for any business reliant on data.

If, like London, the cost of a disaster recovery plan outweighs the cost of any potential disruption, it would be OK to do without. However, it would probably be a good idea for any company to take at least some precautions to mitigate the risk.

To take the snow analogy a step further, when "heavy" snowfall is forecast with absolute certainty for the following day, perhaps it would be wise to leave the house a little earlier than usual in the morning. It costs nothing, but could save a whole lot of frustration and unnecessary delay.

Similarly, with an increasing number of criminals targeting company information, as a way of making money illegally, it would be wise to revise the way things people do things to reduce the risk. Routine data backups, an uninterruptible power supply, anti-virus software and a little old fashioned insurance may also be good ideas.

It may have taken me two hours to get into London last Thursday, but leaving the house early cost me nothing and unlike many others in the city that day, I reached my destination bang on time.