The word "triage" is usually associated with hospitals and battlefields. It refers to a disastrous situation in which there are many people who need medical attention, but there aren't enough doctors or medical supplies to go around. The victims are therefore sorted according to whose injuries are the most serious or according to whom could get the most benefit from immediate treatment.
Obviously, this isn't a situation that you want to find yourself in. However, triage is also sometimes necessary in information technology. Imagine that the building that you work in was destroyed by fire, flood, tornado, runaway bulldozer, bratty kid, or some other destructive force. If you're prepared, you have a backup data centre that has instantly taken over and the company is still online. If not, it's up to you to rebuild the network in an alternate location.
The problem is that rebuilding a network from scratch is a time- and resource-intensive process. It's impossible to just plug in a few computers and resume operations as though nothing ever happened. Instead, you need to prioritise the rebuilding process in terms of which systems are the most critical to the business.
Before I explain how to make that determination, I want to talk about why this is so important. I own several different businesses and have had disasters occur on two separate occasions. In one instance, my business' e-mail server caught on fire. This meant that I was not able to receive or answer customer questions, and I was unable to receive notices of the orders that came in from my Web site.
The other disaster that occurred involved my domain registration expiring. While this was not a physical disaster, there were problems with reestablishing the domain name. My site was down for almost a week.
In both instances, my business was either crippled or completely shut down for a few days. During this time, I was losing a considerable amount of money each day because customers were unable to order products from my Web site or I was unable to respond to customer questions. Since this was a small business with a slim profit margin, a few more days of being offline could have caused the business to go bankrupt.
Even when everything was repaired and back to normal, there was long-term damage to the business. The customers who were lost during that time will never come back. I also lost my position within the search engine rankings because the search engine spiders could not locate my site. It took about three months after getting everything back online for business to return to normal.
My point is that unless you respond quickly and effectively, a disaster can cause your company to close its doors forever. It is therefore critically important to make good decisions as to what steps will be the most effective in getting your company back online.
Prepare the plan
Regardless of the type of company you work for, step number one should be finding a new place to set up shop. If your building isn't physically damaged, you might be able to skip this step. Otherwise, consider using another property that your company already owns or leases, such as a warehouse or a branch office. This will save money and time because you won't have to search for a new piece of property or waste time signing a lease.
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