astro posted on March 17, 2010 10:37
Bainbridge Island-based SMB Nation is now up and running after being down 20+ hours at its Miller Road office with a spring storm and associated power outages. That's the good news - we're open for business again!
Fact of the matter is I run a small business with just under ten employees. It's both a rewarding and challenging role. Over the past 24-hours, I’ve been accurately reminded how the weather can impact a small business. The answer is BRUTALLY!
Yesterday early afternoon the power failed on all of Bainbridge Island (across from Seattle) due to THE STORM! Each in our own way, the staff hung in there working as we were able. After a couple of hours, with no end - it was apparent the staff should be dismissed for the day from the main office and return home. And here is where the story gets much better.
Many staff members actually had power at home and were able to seek and find business productivity by working from home in the late afternoon and early evening - except for one major roadblock: our data and voice infrastructure are on=-premises. We run Microsoft Small Business Server on the data-side and Microsoft Response Point on the voice-side.
Read on.
The power returned to the main office shortly after 430pm when I had occasion to drop by and drop of some paperwork. For a few moments - about 30-mins - the phone system and SBS server were fully functional and connected to the Internet. I left around 5PM to pick up my 80-year old mom from the Seattle ferry that was arriving to participate in my son's 14th birthday party. While waiting in the ferry line to pick Mom, I tried both my iPhone and HP Netbook (Mini 311 with Verizon aircard) to "RPC via HTTP" back into the SBS server and check/answer Exchange-based e-mails. Hmmm.....no luck...and the same with a telephone call I placed into the office's main line. What gives? The power was back on and everything worked when I left!
Here is what occurred and there is a Cloud victory lesson for us all!
Day Road Internet Services, our ISP, suffered a secondary failure above and beyond the power outage. We are in the same office park as our ISP and have a robust FIBER connection on a direct "home run" to the Internet. Our office park is also the central location for power on Bainbridge Island - so we rarely go down.
Fast forward 18+ hours and we're still down. The power has faithfully kept running at our office since it returned late yesterday afternoon, but it was only minutes ago that we received our full Internet connection again to have our on-premises voice and data services/functionality again.
Cloud 1, On-premises 0
Here is how this coudla/shoulda/woudla played out if we embraced the cloud today.
Data: Microsoft Business Productivity Online suite (BPOS) would have managed our e-mail use and my staff could have enjoyed full-on e-mail and associated workflow as soon as the power went out (via air cards, work from home, etc.).
Voice: This week-end we start the transition from Microsoft Response Point to hosted Cisco/'NGT cloud-based telephony that would have reminded up and running AND we could have easily directed existing telephone extensions to everyone mobile telephones or home office lines. We are just days away from this solution. Note to self - lecture old man weather on timings in the future!
Cost: We have been significantly impacted by the outage and that would have been almost completely mitigated if we had our cloud in-place. Jenny Hall, our events manager, is extremely busy preparing for the SMB Nation Spring 2010 conference (join us April 30-May 2, 2010, NYC-area) and she would not have missed a beat if we had the Cisco/NGT solution in-place yesterday. And needless to say - we're already talking about finding a new ISP!
I plan to vote shortly for the CLOUD over complete on-premises solutions for my small business called SMB Nation - what say you?