Location, Location, Location

By ajohnson June 9, 2008 @ 10:52 am

I’ve heard some interesting stories from customers and sales reps about where companies store their backup data.  One IT Director took the weekly backup data home with him each weekend.  And then one day, while he was on vacation in Mexico, there was an outage at work and there was no way to retrieve the backup data.  The good intentioned IT Director wanted to offset the risk by storing the data offsite.  But was his home really the safest place for the company’s data? 

Today, take a moment to consider “is my backup data in a safe location?” 

Flooding in Iowa,twisters in Nebraska, and power outages in Michigan are just some of the disasters making headlines this summer.  If it seems that everywhere you turn, there’s a natural disaster just waiting to happen, consider getting the advise from a company like Risk Management Solutions to help you decide the safest place for your data.  “RMS is the world’s leading provider of products, services, and expertise for the quantification and management of catastrophe risk.”  They have several cool maps on their website including one that depicts the regions with the most risk associated with natural disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes, tornados, and hailstorms. Check it out below.

Judging by the map, Arizona is a safe place to put a datacenter for disaster recovery purposes.  If you’re relying on truck-based vaulting and you don’t live in the area, perhaps AZ is impractical for storage.  However, if you’re smart and relying on online backup, AZ is starting to look a lot more attractive.

Is your backup data in a safe location?