Reply to post: Re: Why?

Re: Why?

Scenario 2 : Our secondary office is non-functional ( must have been a very large Earthquake to knock out both offices)

Scenario 3: Coms connections over a large area are out or functioning at vastly reduced capacity. Several of your key personel will be without any phone contact for a few days. None of those who know how to access the "simple web interface from anywhere" can actually get to it due to road closures (perhaps even whole towns cut off for months), widespread coms and power disruptions, and what is left of the phone networks being swamped firstly by panicked people trying to reach loved ones then post-disaster people spreading their tales of survival and woe to everyone who will listen (and many who quietly put the phone down/fake a "disconnect").

The biggest problem with disaster planning is that disasters don't know how to read our plans and even if they could, they're such inconsiderate bastards that they'd completely ignore them anyway. No battle plan survives contact with the enemy...

[Here, after the Kaikoura quake, for many months we had roads partly or completely closed due to their proximity to 'at-risk' buildings. Many buildings around Wellington were considered perfectly safe but also completely closed due to neighbouring buildings - they didn't want a risk of a nearby collapse as people were entering/exiting. Many business people were not allowed to retrieve equipment, files or vehicles (even when it was parked on the street just inside the exclusion zone, and the vehicle was the key component of their business, and they'd need less than a minute to get it out safely). Your "GSM mobiles numbers which we keep permamantly on charge" would be completely out-of-reach in such circumstances unless kept in diverse locations. Kaikoura and much of the surrounding district was completely isolated for some months, the only source of supplies being harvested locally or transported by helicopter - for months]

Good on you for doing it and I hope it works, and should do in all but the worst events, but if the power to the data is gone, no matter how contactable you are you're not doing much - unless you carry your customer's details around on your phone? :)