The British Airways IT collapse made the airline cancel all flights departing from Heathrow and Gatwick following a power outage.
The British Airways IT collapse disrupted BA operations worldwide and left thousands of travelers stranded, angry and desperate. To make matters worse, it happened over a holiday weekend in the United Kingdom.
According to the apologetic BA Chief Executive, Alex Cruz, a devastating power surge hit BA’s flight, baggage and communication systems on Saturday. The surge was so strong that it also rendered the backup systems ineffective, he said.
In recent months, there has been widespread speculation that BA has been cost cutting, and in fact, the airline recently caught slack for starting to charge passengers for their in-flight snacks.
“This could have all been avoided. BA in 2016 made hundreds of dedicated and loyal IT staff redundant – and outsourced the work to India,” commented Mick Rix, GMB National Officer for Aviation.
And the lesson is…
Without a doubt, the BA power surge incident highlights the need for a solid disaster recovery system and strategy. This is critical for businesses across sectors, and of all sizes.
In the highly connected, IT driven world of business today, it is incredibly frustrating, not to mention financially crippling, to have an IT system failure of any kind.
Within the realm of enterprise IT, ‘Disaster Recovery’ describes the strategy for ensuring that in the event of a disaster, the effect on a business or organization is contained.
So whether you’re running a large corporate network responsible for financial transactions or an educational one that contains student information and coursework, you need more than just backup.
You need to make sure that in the event of a disaster, be it theft, fire or flood, you can not only restore your data – but get back up and running as fast as possible!
For savvy business owners and leaders, this type of ‘insurance’ should ultimately be non-negotiable.
This article originally appeared on The Gremlin.
