Business disaster recovery became a hot topic after the September 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.

Since then providers of such services and advisors have taken the opportunity to highlight their various wares and the reasons why management should take notice. Those in Bermuda are going one step further by attempting to bill the Island as a place where US companies can set up data recovery or co-location centres, giving them the ability to retrieve masses of backed up information electronically.

But this is business that's waiting to be enticed offshore. The service providers are of course more concerned with targeting the larger clients closer to home. The local providers vying to provide infrastructure and services are Fort Knox, Cable and Wireless, the E-Venture Centre, TeleBermuda International and the Bermuda Telephone Co.

Together they have a capacity to handle at least “two dozen” major overseas companies setting up disaster recovery services in Bermuda, according to George Holland, Ernst and Young's senior manager of technology and security risk services.

“There's lots of capacity in Bermuda,” Mr. Holland says.

These recovery services may range from simply having a continuous data back up on a dedicated server on the Island, to the more expensive option of having a dedicated office ready to house operations at a moment's notice.

However, Mr. Holland notes that when approached many companies seem to want to confine disaster recovery to an information technology (IT) function.

“Often times locally, business continuity planning is unfortunately seen as only an IT issue and many companies located in Bermuda do not have a documented plan in place that they can rely on in the event of a business interruption or disaster,” Mr. Holland said.

He finds this surprising given the high concentration of re-insurance companies located in Bermuda and their awareness of the damage that hurricanes and other events such as fire and flooding can represent to businesses.

“We find ourselves being limited to IT continuity plans or disaster recovery procedures because the engagement is not being driven from the most appropriate level of management,” he said.

“Ideally it should be driven down from the board and senior-level management and not as the result of a project from an IT manager.

“When we speak to local companies and organisations about business continuity plans, often times only the IT department is interested. The risk and impact of business interruption is largely not appreciated by the organisation on a whole.” The issue was highlighted in a previous Tech Tattle column on results of E&Y ‘s annual global information security survey.

The report found that just under half of about 450 executives surveyed admitted that their company did not have a business continuity plan.

What's on offer in Bermuda? All the companies offer a data backup centre.

Fort Knox, for example, began life in 1999 as a digital storage facility for companies looking for a secure backup location for their data.

The company, started by four Bermudians, has a 30,000 sq. ft. business continuity “bunker” situated in a bomb resistant, former military electronics maintenance site at Southside. As a further offering to clients Fort Knox has forged a relationship with Foreshore in Jersey.

Under the deal Fort Knox will have the ability to locate clients' back ups off the Island at Foreshore's facility in Jersey. This keeps the data offshore and free from the legal problems by locating the backup in the US.

Centre Solution's E-Venture Centre also has the capacity to host data recovery and provide back up office space. Cable & Wireless says it can provide some space at its offices. TeleBermuda's backup server farm is located out at the former baselands.

Mr. Holland says Bermuda's constraints lie on its dependence on one local node of communications, the Bermuda Telephone Co., and on one provider of electrical power, Belco.

Unfortunately I was not able to get service providers to give me a range of what such services might cost, so this will remain a mystery for businesses until they actually contact the providers.

I wanted to find out the prices so that some of the smaller companies in Bermuda might get an idea of what these services cost. Are these affordable or not? Perhaps some IT person can e-mail me some figures on their spending in this area to give other businesses some idea of the costs. I will keep your company out of the story of course. Any takers? For companies that provide services, in which data can easily be located elsewhere, why not give your employees a home computer each? Then, in the case of a shut down, these employees can continue to operate off the backup tapes of the data from home.

Tech Tattle deals with topics relating to technology. Contact Ahmed at editoroffshoreon.com or (33) 467901474.