A meteoric event forming in the equator has caused bookmakers to slash odds on a white Christmas. With ‘El Niño’ on the way, and UK forecasters predicting the harshest winter in 50 years, leading Cloud IT experts Net Solutions Europe (NSE) comment on the importance of resilient IT systems to mitigate crisis management during the harsh coming months.
The nation’s businesses could be forgiven for recounting the severe aftermath of the last winter of 2009/10 inspired by the ‘El Niño Southern Oscillation’. Six years ago widespread transport issues, power failures, school closures and even severe flooding devastated parts of the country, Cumbria alone suffering £124m of damage to commercial property and businesses. With snow estimated to cost businesses nearly £500m per day across the country, the extended period of severe weather caused the economy to contract by 0.5% in Q4 of 2009.
According to forecasting experts, the UK is set for even worse this winter, with odds on snow at Christmas dropping from 5/1 to 2/1 as conditions are set to rival the record winters of 1962/63, when lakes and rivers froze over and 1946/47, when closed power stations caused the government introduced measures to impose nationwide limits on power consumption.
Even short-term power shortages in 2015, coupled with massive transport disruption or even flooding, have the potential to wreak havoc on the productivity of the nation’s businesses.
“Premises losing power and issues with staff access are predictable effects of extreme weathers conditions. The problem is further exacerbated when one internal server is responsible for housing all files and processes. Even the largest organisations can find themselves coming to a grinding halt.”
“When a problem is predictable, a solution must exist, and one solution to the problem is cloud integration. Storing data in a secure, purpose-built data centres not only creates confidence in the safety of vital information from both physical and online threats, but enables complete remote access to ensure productivity remains largely unaffected even when any members of staff are unable to get to work.”
“The cost implications of investing in new IT systems can cause concern for some business owners.” adds Tom, “but adopting and implementing Cloud into their organisation can often actually be a cost-neutral exercise, adding both flexibility and resilience.”