A PotentialReal Disaster

Real Disaster recovery at Backup Direct

Services Office Provider MLS Group Files for Bankruptcy - Closes or Sells Offices

It had been rumoured for a while that MLS Group was in trouble - after having its banking facilities ‘renegotiated' (read ‘withdrawn').  The inside scoop is that the group had other systemic problems too.

Backup Direct has been a tenant of MLS in Bath for four years - it's where we have our main sales, marketing and support staff (other staff are in Reading and London; hosting facilities are in Milton Keynes, Docklands, Bristol and Brussels).

MLS has not been a shining star when it comes to servicing Backup Direct.  Individuals at MLS have been great - but I often had the feeling they were being driven by their own company culture to behave in ways that were not proper. Examples include offering prices for use of facilities and then reneging on the terms at a later date.  I eventually got very used to getting everything down in writing. But a business that does not put its customers first, will eventually be exposed when times get tough: ‘when the tide goes out, you see who has been swimming naked.'

Anyway, to my main point...

MLS has closed or sold-off most of its locations - the office in Bath is one of the most occupied and, I assume, profitable.  For the past few weeks, however, tenants have been left in the dark about what would be happening to the Bath office. The risk was that we would arrive one morning and find the doors locked and the security keys/codes changed - this was what actually happened to some London facilities of MLS.

So a real disaster could (stress could) strike. No phones, no computers, no internet, no desks...

How would Backup Direct cope as a business and, more importantly, how would our customers - some 2000+ businesses - be affected?

Firstly, our customers.  The effect on them would be zero. Core services such as backup, email security, encryption and failover - all operate autonomously, out of multiple ‘tier-4' data centres (see above).  These facilities are second-to-none - world-class - they are part of our endeavour to ‘make enterprise-class technology affordable for the UK small-medium business'.  If any one of our facilities were to be impacted by any event, another would be there, live, ready to continue operations.

Secondly, our business. The effect of losing our head office could be serious. I expect that for most small-medium businesses, it would be. But similar to a situation earlier this year when snow caused much of the UK to grind to a halt, Backup Direct was and remains prepared.

I would go so far as to claim that we would not be adversely affected by the loss of our head office:

• - Phones - VOIP - managed via an outsourced web-based telephony system - Callagenix. We can have any number/extension terminated at any other number - be it land-line, VOIP or mobile. The result is that in-bound calls to our two core numbers (sales and service) automatically route to the relevant person working either at home or at an alternate location. Out-bound calls are made in a similar way.
• - Business Systems - Backup Direct has used NetSuite for nearly six years. Our entire business is run using web-based software - this includes: CRM, support, marketing, billing and accounting. Staff see no difference in how they operate, no matter where they are located.
• - Email - outsourced Microsoft Exchange - email and calendaring are all protected and available on laptops/desktops/smart-phones or using a web browser.
• - File and Print - outsourced and accessible via Terminal Services. All documents are stored in central locations and accessible from any remote location with secure internet access. This part is amazing - click in a cell in Excel in the office - run to catch a train home - log on there - the curser is still there in the same cell, waiting for the next key stroke.
• - Backup - everything, three times. Even our Exchange email has a continuity service running on it so we can access email if/when it goes down.

So what plans did we have to put in place?

Contact Lists. When everyone is in the same office, certain things are taken for granted. Telephone lists are not necessarily up-to-date - so we had to update them and ensure everyone had a copy or knowledge of how to get a copy.  This included ensuring the latest home telephone numbers were known - as some staff had moved house since it was last updated and adding details of some very recent joiners.

Hard-copy Documents. Some things remain as printed items. Even though we may have scanned copies, Direct Debit Instructions, for example, need to be kept as hard copies too - so we had to plan for the possibility that the offices would be barred to us and certain valuable documents no longer accessible.  This meant simply taking folders of DDIs and other documents off-site ‘just in case'.

Logons and Passwords. Did everyone have access to the above-mentioned systems from home - and did they know the correct web-addresses, logons and passwords? The answer was ‘mostly' - but after this planning - we ensured they all did.

Alternate Premises. Our Resources Manager, Belinda, was given the task of surveying alternate office facilities in and around Bath.  We had a complete list of what was available, with costs and facilities.  We identified our favourites and were ready to ‘pounce' if we needed to.  There would certainly not be enough time to agree a new lease on a new office - so we had to stick with the serviced office approach.

What would we actually do if we could not get into the office?

Firstly, everyone would be able to work from home - and as described earlier, the customers should not sense any material difference.

We figured we could work this way for one or two weeks without too much trouble. We would arrange for regular conference calls to ensure any unforeseen problems were addressed and to ensure a semblance of normal communications. And at some point, we would relocate all or certain teams to one of the temporary offices identified earlier.

 Where are we at today (19^th May 09)?

There appears to be no news! From what we know - there was a buyer for our facility that pulled out at the end of last week (MWB).  Another (Regus) is now looking at it and there has been a stay of execution for the facility for another ten working days.  That effectively means we remain at risk until the end of June.

Hopefully, all will be agreed with Regus. If not, it will be painful and will cause some inefficiency - but we will be fine.