When IT disaster recovery plan is put to the test, VoIP becomes savior
For Alliant Energy Corp., a Madison, Wis.-based gas and electric company, the test of its IT disaster recovery plan came fast and furiously last June when flood waters swept over its Cedar Rapids, Iowa, territory. Over a few days, high water knocked out not only generating facilities and substations in Iowa, but also the unthinkable: its 21-story downtown central facility, including the data center and network operations center housed on the fifth floor. More than 800 Alliant Energy employees were displaced, and 35,000 customers were left without power.
Now, seven months later, the company is still digesting lessons learned and in fact has compiled them in a 10-page document that shows what went well and what didn’t.
In the heat of the crisis, Alliant Energy learned that its move toward IP telephony was smart. So was a recent decision to invest in an OC-48 broadband connection to replicate data between its Cedar Rapids and Madison data centers. Both of these decisions helped bring the company back to its feet in just a few days.
On the other hand, an IT disaster recovery plan that focused on its Madison headquarters wasn’t much help in Cedar Rapids and clearly was insufficient for a territory that stretches 54,000 square miles across three states. The powerful power company also learned you can’t go it alone in disaster recovery (DR) — it takes a village of willing vendor/partners to get people back to work.
See When IT disaster recovery plan is put to the test, VoIP becomes savior.
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