Survivors Demonstrate How to Endure Disasters

Unlike other items in their IT budgets, corporations spend money on disaster-recovery planning in hopes that it will be wasted.

Unfortunately, sometimes it’s not.

The most extreme examples of disaster recovery followed the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, which not only killed entire departments at financial companies such as Cantor Fitzgerald but also burned a hole through the communications infrastructure of almost every major company that does business in New York.

This week’s tragic attacks in London caused nothing like the corporate disruption that followed Sept. 11. But they did remind corporate IT managers who might have become complacent that time and money spent on disaster recovery really is wasted—right up until the second they become indispensable.

Here, we present the experience of many of the companies that recovered from Sept. 11 and from other, more mundane disasters. The lessons they learned and the strategies they developed offer insights into building effective plans to keep a disaster from becoming a catastrophe.

Story Guide:
Where to Start: After the Disaster: A 2000 Gartner survey estimated that 60 percent of companies have no disaster plan. Big mistake. Here’s a set of techniques and priorities that will give you a blueprint from which to work.

Cantor Fitzgerald: 47 Hours:Cantor Fitzgerald lost more people and systems than any other company. Here’s how it happened, and how its people responded.

Staying Alert: Three years after the tragedy on Sept. 11, Cantor Fitzgerald uses pop quizzes to make sure it’s ready for any disaster it could face.

The People Principle: Infrastructure isn’t the only thing you lose in a disaster. Your plans have to differ based partly on how many people are affected. Here are a range of response options.