| You have built a successful Internet based home | | | | and employees working on them and using this |
| business and your revenues are rolling in, so why | | | | high speed line. What happens if you have |
| should you worry about contingency plans? After | | | | computer failures, your hard disk fails or your high |
| all the Internet is ubiquitous and available virtually | | | | speed line goes down for a day. Do you have |
| all over the world. We will examine some of the | | | | back up plans in place to replace your computers, |
| single points of failure, which could seriously | | | | to work from another location or recover your |
| damage your revenue stream in this article about | | | | lost data. Depending on the risk of these events |
| contingency plans. | | | | occurring and the impact on your revenue, you |
| There are literally thousands if not millions of | | | | may want to implement recovery programs that |
| Internet businesses today and we cannot | | | | minimize the impact of these sorts of failures. |
| anticipate every possible scenario. Instead this | | | | At the other end of the network you are most |
| article will discuss some of the general areas that | | | | likely making use of some ones server farm and |
| anyone who depends on the Internet for their | | | | applications that are running on these servers. |
| revenue should consider. Single points of failure | | | | This area is even more important since if your |
| are really the central focus of any contingency | | | | revenue stream is dependent on these |
| planning. Any time you have a failure of one of | | | | applications running you will want to make sure |
| these elements, you can seriously risk your | | | | that they can survive any number of |
| revenue stream and service to your customers. | | | | catastrophes. Questions you can ask include: is the |
| The Internet itself is widely available with many | | | | data backed up every day; do they have back up |
| interconnecting routes for managing traffic and as | | | | servers that your applications can be migrated to |
| a result is one of the most robust networks | | | | if there is a failure; do they have back up power |
| available on the planet. So what is the problem? | | | | to deal with power failures; do they have several |
| Well everyone must access the Internet from | | | | access points to the internet in case one line goes |
| some point regardless of whether you do it from | | | | down; are their databases secure from hackers; |
| your home or office. In addition the services you | | | | etc. |
| use to provide your service to your customers | | | | These are just a few of the areas that should be |
| must also access the Internet as well. These | | | | considered as part of your contingency planning |
| access points and applications, which run on these | | | | activity. Of course you must balance cost vs. |
| servers are often the trouble spots for many | | | | revenue loss with the risk of failures to decide on |
| people. | | | | how much should be spent to deal with a potential |
| Lets assume that you have a high speed line | | | | disruption to your Internet based home business. |
| coming into your home with several computers | | | | |