When an explosion last June knocked out 9,000 servers at The Planet, a Texas details center, 7,500 customers were affected. Though that level of disruption is rare, it provides a sobering reminder of how reliant businesses are on high tech, and whether that technology suddenly fails how fast it can sink a business.

Prevention and catastrophe planning are key, say experts, to surviving a crash and keeping costs down by the towering haul.

Businesses “can lose so much money when their servers go down,” says Gordon Ruby of Portland-based River City Technical Services. Web sites that can’t be accessed can often immediately lose sales or advertising revenue, or billing or scheduling input. And productivity suffers. “You don’t want employees twiddling their thumbs,” says Ruby.

Smaller businesses likely don’t have IT experts on staff and a mid-size company might have a part-timer, but what whether the circuitry goes haywire while they’re on vacation?

Whether it’s Web sites or hard

drives holding vital business info, David Lechnyr of Oregon Tech Support in Eugene says businesses must prepare for a total technology meltdown — and many don’t. When Lechnyr gets a shout from frantic businesses, he often hears the same words: “Wow, I never realized how dependent we are.”

It’s what Geoff Birkemeier of Birkemeier Consulting in Tigard calls the Catch-22 of office technology management: whether everything is working fine, many wonder why they are paying somebody to maintain it.

“People don’t realize they need it, until they need it,” he says.

Lechnyr says businesses can be out of operation for up to five days while the problem is fixed, and spend up to $10,000 in fees. It can cost thousands for emergency data-recovery services, too.

whether you want to avoid technology holding your business hostage, start planning in advance:

1. Be choosey before hiring an IT consultant. Check references and build…

Orginal post by Mike

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