How Long Could Your Business Actually Stay Down?
Every business in Brisbane knows the risk. Floods, storms, power outages, hardware failure and cyber incidents all end the same way, with staff sitting idle and revenue stopping. Backup keeps your data safe. Business continuity keeps you working. We build and test a recovery plan that sets how quickly each part of your business comes back online, so a bad day stays a bad day rather than becoming a bad month.
Benefit cards
Defined recovery times
We agree how quickly each system must be back, your recovery time objective, and build to it. No vague promises, a target you can hold us to.
Failover that actually switches
Where uptime is critical, systems fail over to a standby copy so work continues while the primary is repaired, rather than everyone waiting.
Tested, not assumed
A plan that has never been rehearsed is a document, not a defence. We test recovery on a schedule and give you the results.
Built for Brisbane conditions
Flood, storm and extended power loss are local realities. We plan for the office being physically unreachable, not just for a server failing.
A plan your staff can follow
Clear instructions for who does what when systems go down, so recovery does not depend on one person being reachable.
Ransomware recovery
A clean, isolated copy of your systems means you can refuse the ransom and restore, rather than negotiating with an attacker.
What Happens to Your Business If Brisbane Floods Again?
- In 2011 and again in 2022, floodwater reached businesses across Woolloongabba, Rocklea, West End and East Brisbane. For many, the problem was not only the water. It was that everything needed to keep trading, the server, the records, the phones, was in a building nobody could enter for a week.
- A disaster recovery plan assumes exactly that. It asks the uncomfortable questions in advance. If your office were unreachable tomorrow, where would your data be? How would staff work? How long until you could invoice, book appointments or answer the phone?
- We answer those questions before the water rises. Systems and data are held offsite in Australian data centres, staff can work from anywhere, and the recovery steps are documented and rehearsed. When a Brisbane business with a plan and a business without one are hit by the same flood, one reopens in days and the other may not reopen at all.
Two Questions That Decide Your Recovery Plan
Every recovery plan comes down to two numbers, and they are worth understanding because they drive the cost.
The first is how much data you can afford to lose, measured in time. If your systems back up every hour, a failure could cost up to an hour of work. That is your recovery point objective. A busy medical practice needs a much shorter window than an office that produces a few documents a day.
The second is how long you can afford to be down before systems are back. That is your recovery time objective. Minutes, hours or a day are very different plans at very different costs.
We help you set both realistically, then build to them.
FRequently ASKED Questions
- 01
What is the difference between business continuity and disaster recovery?
Business continuity is the broader plan for keeping your whole operation running through a disruption, covering systems, staff, communications and processes. Disaster recovery is the technical part of that plan, specifically restoring your IT systems and data after an incident. Put simply, disaster recovery gets the technology back, and business continuity keeps the business functioning while that happens.
- 02
Is disaster recovery the same as backup?
No, though they work together. Backup is a copy of your data that lets you restore files that are lost, deleted or corrupted. Disaster recovery is the plan and the capability to get your entire systems and operations running again after a major disruption. Backup is one ingredient in disaster recovery, not the whole thing. You can have good backups and still be down for a week without a recovery plan.
- 03
Why does a Brisbane business specifically need this?
Brisbane faces flood and storm risk that many cities do not, and the 2011 and 2022 floods showed how quickly a business can lose access to its premises entirely. A recovery plan built for Brisbane assumes the office itself may be unreachable, not just that a piece of hardware might fail, and makes sure your data and your ability to work exist somewhere the water cannot reach.
- 04
What is an RTO and an RPO?
A recovery time objective, or RTO, is how long your business can afford to be down before systems are restored. A recovery point objective, or RPO, is how much data, measured in time, you can afford to lose. These two figures shape your whole recovery plan, because faster recovery and less data loss cost more to deliver. We help you set both to match how your business actually operates.
- 05
How do you test a disaster recovery plan?
We periodically simulate a failure and run through the recovery, confirming that systems come back within the agreed time and that the restored data is complete and usable. Testing is what separates a plan that works from a document that looks reassuring. We give you the results in writing, including anything that needs adjusting.
- 06
What does a disaster recovery plan actually include?
It documents which systems are critical and in what order they must be restored, where your data and system copies are held, how staff will work if the premises are unavailable, who is responsible for each step, and the agreed recovery times. It is a practical runbook for a bad day, written while everyone is calm rather than during the incident itself.
- 07
How much does business continuity cost?
It depends on how quickly you need to recover and how much downtime your business can tolerate. A plan that gets you back in a day costs less than one that keeps you running with almost no interruption. We assess what a period of downtime would actually cost your business, then design a plan proportionate to that, so you are not overpaying for protection you do not need or underprepared for the risk you carry.
Do You Have a Plan, or Just Backups?
Most Brisbane businesses have some form of backup and no real recovery plan. We will review where you stand, tell you how long you would realistically be down today, and show you what it would take to recover faster. No obligation.