iTECH: Rebooting IT Systems After Disasters

PHOENIX — Motor carriers have long feared disasters such as fires, floods, hurricanes and tornadoes because of their ability to snarl freight transportation, but with fleets now more dependent on computer systems than ever before, there is also an information technology component to disaster recovery.

Getting a trucking company’s information technology department back to work after a catastrophe is not just a matter of keeping IT employees busy — it probably determines whether a carrier is doing business at all, panelists said here during an educational session hosted by the Information Technology & Logistics Council of American Trucking Associations.

“It’s a matter of how much will it cost, versus how much are you willing to lose,” Joe Long, director of business continuity and storage solutions for Logicalis Group, said, assessing what a carrier is willing to spend on prevention. “It’s not just an IT issue; it’s a business issue.”

The ITLC session was part of a conference the council co-hosted in June with  ATA’s National Accounting and Finance Council.

“When you look at types of damage to your company,” said Jeff Crandall, service continuity manager for Hewlett-Packard Corp., “there’s damage to your reputation, to employee morale, to customers’ business and to your market share.”

Bob Fowler, chief information officer for Estes Express Lines, said his company survived an unusual flood in 2004, before he signed on with the Richmond, Va., LTL carrier, thanks to advance planning by local leaders.

The city government built a floodwall to protect a neighborhood known as “the Bottom,” which — consistent with its name — is highly prone to flooding, he said. Fowler said the structure worked well in keeping the Bottom from getting washed away, but it also kept the rain generated by a tropical storm from leaving the area. Because the city’s “antiquated storm sewers couldn’t handle” the deluge, it led to a flood in the Estes headquarters, about eight miles away from the Bottom.

“Our building flooded, including the IT department. There were servers floating in the halls,” Fowler said.

IT was in the basement, and Fowler said that was a significant mistake. “The new data center is on the second floor,” he said.

Estes ranks No. 17 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of for-hire carriers and is the sixth-largest LTL on the list.

Considering the damage, Fowler said he was somewhat amazed the IT department was running again after just eight days. Despite that, a lot has changed, he said.

In 2004, the company had no disaster plan. Now it does, and the company has a back-up data center in Arizona. Furthermore, Fowler said, CEO Robey Estes Jr. is a strong proponent of planning ahead.

Fowler said the carrier was less dependent on computer systems in 2004.

“We did more [work] manually then,” he said, explaining the quick recovery then and why a similar unprotected incident today would be more disastrous.

Fowler also said Estes had help from the emergency services group of IBM Corp.

Support from the top, said Gayle Malone, business continuity practice leader for Hewlett-Packard, is essential.

“You need to get the CEO and the chief financial officer to buy into this,” she told the IT managers. Malone said HP also does emergency services work.

She, too, advocated prevention and planning.

“Many disasters are preventable,” Malone said, adding that just drawing up a plan is not sufficient. Plans must be updated to reflect changing conditions, and there should be exercises or drills to make sure a plan can be implemented.

Fowler agreed, saying: “Never assume that management and employees know what to do in your plans. They probably don’t.”

Logicalis’ Long recommended that companies conduct a business impact analysis to figure out how much they need to recover and how quickly. In addition to the recovery services offered by IBM, HP and others, he also mentioned back-up locations — such as the Estes center in Arizona — and online cloud-computing services.