The world is on high alert as news of the Wuhan Coronavirus spreads.
After the first report of novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in Wuhan, China on December 31, 2019, the stats regarding confirmed cases and deaths continue to rise. With no specific treatment or vaccine available as of publication date, the World Health Organization declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.
The global impact of the virus could be crippling as quarantines are issued, borders are closed, and flights are suspended.
The implications of quarantine for businesses
With public health top of mind, companies in China have directed employees to follow quarantine directives. People under observation or quarantined are not allowed to leave their home for 14 days due to the incubation of the virus, leaving most working professionals to work from home.
With the intent to protect public health, it is also important for businesses to protect their business-critical data throughout this crisis. Ensuring business continuity through these difficult situations is critical to the survival of organizations, and with China such a global power player could have effects on the global economy as well.
Executing your disaster recovery plan in times of crisis
Recent national and global crises have impact beyond borders, not just the Coronavirus but also the Australian bush fires, which caused a State of Emergency declaration in Australia’s capital city of Canberra.
As part of Arcserve’s 2020 data protection predictions, we see the shift to businesses proactively preparing for epic storms, adjusting disaster recovery (DR) plans to better anticipate events that could halt operations and IT services.
According to our survey of IT decision makers around the world, more than half of all businesses don’t have a DR plan in place, and of those that do, less than 15% have confidence in recovery. With the uncertainty of natural disasters, this number MUST shift to ensure business continuity through catastrophes. While we can’t predict natural disasters or virus outbreaks, we can be prepared to mitigate risk in the face of crisis.
To combat new threats that cause extended data loss or downtime, businesses require proactive data protection to maintain business continuity and, in the case of the Coronavirus, protect remote workloads. Whether from storms or outbreaks, companies need to be prepared and have cloud backup and DR tools in place that support telecommuting and downtime recovery.
True business continuity can be achieved with Arcserve Continuous Availability, offering high availability combined with heartbeat-powered automatic failover, and continuous data protection for Windows and Linux applications and systems on-premises, remote, and in the cloud.
