How Sussex businesses can take remote control (From The Argus)

How Sussex businesses can take remote control

8:00am Thursday 18th February 2010

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Every snow cloud has a silver lining – if you’re involved in cloud computing technology.

The system, in which computer hardware and software are pooled centrally and accessed via the internet, is becoming increasingly popular as high-speed broadband becomes widely available.

As well as saving IT costs, the technology can be remotely accessed, which is vital for firms wanting to keep going during snow storms, like last month’s Big Freeze.

It is estimated the disruption cost the Sussex economy £6 million a day as businesses were forced to shut because staff could not make it into work.

But the cold snap was a boon for at least one company, Clouddata, based at the Sussex Innovation Centre at the University of Sussex Falmer campus.

Inquires leapt by 300% in the days following the snowas businesses looked to make sure they would not be caught out in the cold again.

Karl Robinson, Clouddata sales director, said: “We can allow companies to replicate their existing IT infrastructure within our data centres.

We have got two centres in London to get around the problem of one of our own becoming unavailable.”

As well as replicating, companies could choose to entirely replace their existing IT systems, though this may not prove popular with some staff.

Mr Robinson said: “This would require a culture shift in many places, particularly if they have their own IT guy who could be precious about it as he may be out of a job.

“But there really is no need for a dusty little grey box sitting in the corner of the office waiting to explode or for the cleaner to accidentally pull out the plug.”

One of the main objections people have to cloud computing is security, as data centres carrying information from many different companies could be targeted by hackers.

However, Mr Robinson said individual firms were on their own networks and had their own firewalls.

He added: “Everything is logically separate so hacking into one customer does not give access to any others. The centres themselves are very secure and are guarded 24/7.”

Replacing or replicating IT systems may be out of some firms’ price range.

A cheaper option could be signing up to a site like gotomypc.com or logmein.

com. For a monthly fee, users can access their own computer desktops from any terminal in the world.

However, for the system to work the company’s original computer must be switched on, meaning it would be useless if staff could not make it into work in the first place.

Despite the level of new technology available, many firms still lack a coherent strategy to ensure they can keep going after severe snow, a fire or a flood.

Tony Gimple, managing director of Lewes-based Crisis Survivor, which specialises in risk management, said: “We find the vast majority of businesses are not running the right systems or do not have any plans to cope.”

Mr Gimple also recommends using the cloud but added that a simpler step would be changing telephone systems.

He said: “If you are using a Voice over Internet (VoI) system such as Skype then you can access your phone anywhere in the world.

“It is not complex and not expensive. The expense can be self-funded because using VoI is anywhere between 35% to 50% cheaper than a land line.

“This is better than relying on insurance-based protection because by the time that kicks in it can already be too late for the business.”

This does not mean that traditional insurance should be ignored, however.

When the Buncefield oil storage depot in Hertfordshire blew up, 82 businesses, from suppliers to a newsagents, went bust because they relied on its business.

Tony Fellingham, commercial insurance consultant in the Brighton office of Crest Insurance, said business interruption insurance would have saved them by paying for the cost of relocating.

Smaller firms may opt for “increased cost of working insurance”, which is not as comprehensive but could cover the cost of hiring someone to re-input data lost because of a power surge.

Mr Fellingham said more businesses were recognising the benefit of taking precautions against disaster – natural or otherwise.

He added: “A lot of people in the old days assumed it would never happen to them. The thing that changed was the worry of terrorism after the twin towers fell in New York.

“If a guy gets beaten up at the end of your street then you become more careful when you go out at night.”

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