Simon Crowther, founder and MD of Flood Protection Solutions, discusses what measures need to be taken to ensure technology is taken care of if companies are ever to recover from water damage from floods or burst pipes...

In a world where information technology is used in nearly every workplace and home, the protection of data has become a global priority. IT operations and data centres are a crucial aspect of business and organisational operations around the world. One of the main concerns is business continuity; companies rely on their information systems to run their operations. If a system becomes unavailable, company operations may be impaired, or worse, stopped completely.

To protect data and ensure system functionality, safeguarding tools are widely available. Basic data protection guidance advises on the use of passphrases over passwords, using anti-malware software, setting up firewalls and keeping up to date with system updates. These measures make it more difficult for data to be stolen, manipulated or utilised for unintended uses and keeps companies running.

To further protect yourself, encryption should be used, and in today’s world, there are many levels of encryption that can be applied. Data centres utilise the latest CCTV and security systems to protect their bases from unwanted intruders.

All the measures mentioned above focus on the protection of data from others, however, is the threat of floodwater ever considered?

Floodwaters, from burst water pipes or natural disasters, threaten the security of data and operational continuity. Alarming statistics released by CNBC in 2017 show that 40% of small businesses never recover from a disaster such as flooding. IT equipment and data are both at risk.

To help protect your business or property from flooding and reduce the potential impacts, cables and computers should be planned and ideally raised above the ground. Data should also be backed up, in case of water damage to main servers. It should be backed up to an offsite storage facility such as a cloud environment, to avoid data being affected by the same flood event.

Most server rooms have some form of ventilation or climate control, yet very few use water detectors and almost none have alerting for flooding. Water detectors can alert of flood risks before any equipment damage and subsequent data loss occurs. Once a leak is detected, it is imperative to have a plan in place to deal with floodwater or leaks and prevent further damage.

To deal with larger floods, companies need to have options at their disposal to actively deal with floodwaters. Temporary barriers, which can be deployed in minutes and stored in limited space, can help prevent floodwaters from entering the most vulnerable areas.
Water pumps allow for rapid removal of floodwaters to safe areas. These measures offer companies ways of mitigating the effects of floodwaters, and minimise the impact on data servers, allowing the business to return to full functionality quicker and without loss.

See floodprotectionsolutions.co.uk for more information.