Can your business survive a disaster? Back up data to a secure offsite location in advance

The terrible cost of hurricanes and other natural disasters is principally counted in lost lives and devastated homes. But as neighbors help each other in the rebuilding process, a secondary toll, extracted from businesses affected by the disaster, becomes equally apparent. The destruction of economic infrastructure and capability exacerbates an already massive burden and lengthens the community's recovery time. But real estate management businesses can shield themselves from the most crippling effects of a disaster by backing up their data to a secure offsite location in advance. Having a robust disaster recovery plan ready for activation following a disruptive event—localized building fires and floods as well as widespread disasters—will minimize downtime for real estate managers and allow them to continue operations, maintain reporting deadlines and most importantly keep their cash flow steady. Data hosting options Real estate companies have a couple of options for safeguarding their crucial business data against catastrophic loss. They can host their critical operating data themselves, which means acquiring and maintaining the necessary IT, network security, and disaster recovery infrastructure. Firms preferring to spare themselves this burden and concentrate on their core real estate business have another choice: They can let their software provider perform the data hosting function, which can be a cost-effective approach that takes advantage of economies of scale and eliminate the need for an extensive in-house IT organization. For example, Yardi offers application service provider (ASP) hosting to its entire global portfolio of clients, from the largest multinational firms to small businesses. ASP clients' user account data is maintained at five data centers throughout North America and Europe, and client data is replicated to secondary data sites. The ASP option guarantees that client databases remains secure when disaster strikes—even something of the magnitude of Hurricane Katrina. Should one of the five hosting sites in North America and Europe undergo any type of failure, a business continuity plan redirects client activity to the secondary data center. The expected turnaround time following a disaster is 24 hours. Providers boost disaster recovery Even firms that prefer to self-host their software may be able to enlist their software provider for disaster recovery purposes. This step involves replicating the self-hosted data at the provider's central data center via file transfer protocol. Ideally this is done daily but the backup frequency is left to the client's discretion. One self-hosted company that selected this option is San Diego-based Fairfield Properties LP. "Our data is constantly being backed up. In a real emergency, our disaster recovery plan would allow us to be back in business in less than 24 hours," said Tami Presnall, Fairfield's data manager. Fairfield IT officials conduct periodic drills that confirm connections to Yardi's data center, verify the integrity of stored data, and validate test scripts. "Our database backup system and our emergency plans meet our needs precisely," Presnall said. Business continuity validated Software providers gain from emergency planning as well. Generally speaking, data protection services are not moneymakers on their own, but offering safe haven in an emergency, large or small, earns goodwill from clients who resume operations quickly after a disaster. Moreover, giving clients the best possible help when they need it most is a source of deep internal satisfaction for software providers. In an environment of unpredictable weather patterns along with the ever-present specter of economically or politically motivated interference, disaster protection figures to grow in importance and become a larger part of the business plan, both for asset and real estate companies and the software providers who serve them. In fact, data protection will be akin to an insurance policy that allows companies to devote their energies to their core business by leaving such services to experts better equipped to handle them. Scott Wiener is vice president of information technology for Yardi Systems, Inc., Santa Barbara, Calif.