Global IT Outage – What did we learn?

On Friday 19th July 2024 we witnessed disrupted technology on a scale never seen before. A rouge file from Security software provider CrowdStrike killed Windows systems across the globe. The impact was significant, medical, transport and payment systems to name a few, not to mention the millions of business systems.

As an MSP, we had an eventful morning, clients were impacted, but we made sure the impact was minimal…all were operational by 9:12am.

How did we achieve this? By making sure our clients have a great DR plan.

We’re always highlighting the value of a great DR plan, having been through many disaster situations through various clients – one of which was an office fire resulting in total loss of all hardware (this was pre-cloud, too).

When disaster strikes, it can come in many forms, but the initial impact is always the same…. chaos. Different parts of the business trying to figure out the best path in which to become operational again, whilst under pressure and working on the fly. This would have been the case for companies across the globe on Friday.

How would a DR plan have helped?
A great DR plan should not only include IT systems, but comprehensively the whole business, processes, priorities and work arounds. All documented in a clear and simple way so that any section can be used independently or the whole thing as one (i.e. Internet outage, Telephony outage or total loss of systems).

This gives the business confidence and clarity in these events. Nobody needs to waste energy or time working it out on the fly, as it has already been pre-planned and tested. All it needs is a decision on which sections to initiate and execute. Then all stakeholders know exactly what to expect and what is expected of them.

A great Disaster Recovery / Business Continuity plan done correctly is an invaluable tool to have in a crisis, and we recommend all business have one…and test it.
If your business doesn’t have a great plan for outages, or you ‘re not sure if the one you have is any good, speak to one of our team who will always be happy to help.