We’re still thinking about disasters, and that’s a good thing. Most people, and even most businesses, don’t really think about them until they happen, other than perhaps to buy some insurance (a great start).

We’ve looked so far at data backup, the automation thereof, and the recoverability that’s essential. This week, consider a quick, broader look at infrastructure. If the lights went out, how would you operate? Folks in the Northeast are thinking about this, and even in the Midwest we’re all too familiar with ice storms and their power grid impacts.

It’s handy that just the other day, at an i2E event near us in Tulsa, Oklahoma, I met a pair of entrepreneurs from a “bunker” style vault data center, Titan Private Security Vault. They already have stories of millions of dollars saved when their clients–rather large enterprises in the region–were able to shift operations on a moment’s notice to a secondary location (TPSV) when the grid went dark. In one case, it was due to a major disruption in downtown Tulsa. In another case, it was a massive ice storm that made headlines across the nation.

Point is, these businesses had a plan in place that included secondary, leased workstations and infrastructure, allowing them to get payroll completed and handle other mission critical functions even when the rest of the city was dark.

It may be that this level of redundancy is beyond your budget. It may not be. Either way, thinking ahead to how you would keep a heartbeat going if the whole state lost electricity is a key part of a disaster recovery plan, or at least a “disaster aversion plan.”