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Disaster recovery of information technology and business operations from fire, flood, hurricane or terrorist attack itself can be a disaster.

"Forty percent of companies don't have adequate plans in place in case of floods, hardware crashes and other disasters," said Timothy de Lisle, managing principal of Corigelan, a Chicago-based disaster recovery consulting company.
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The impact can be devastating to a business. "Seventy-five percent of companies that can't recover their data for five or six days go out of business," said de Lisle, 37.

He and three other former executives from Comdisco, a Rosemont disaster recovery company, decided to go after the market in a new way two years ago -- by injecting objectivity and taking a comprehensive approach to disaster recovery and business continuity planning.

Companies often made adequate plans to recover data, but not for having people and software in place to lead the recovery, he said. In addition, the industry is dominated by companies that only sell their own products, such as backup hardware, mainframe computers or leases to "hot sites" -- remote facilities that house leased secure backups of data and temporary quarters for recovery-team members.

Corigelan's founders themselves had focused on hot sites at Comdisco, and concluded hot sites could pose problems.

"Hot sites are a shared-risk pool," he said. "Some [hot-site] firms operate on a first-come, first-served basis or a best-efforts basis; some will offer guarantees of access, but they don't guarantee the location you have subscribed to or the specific equipment you are subscribed to."

De Lisle said companies spent $75,000 to $250,000 for a recovery plan, adding that it costs 2 percent to 5 percent of a company's IT budget to implement a plan.

Mainframes traditionally used in hot sites could easily be partitioned for use by multiple companies, he said. But he said the information tech industry has been moving away from centralized mainframes and toward distributed servers, which are not easily shared.

Comdisco went bankrupt as a result of the fall in the dot-com economy and now is being liquidated. De Lisle and his colleagues moved on to SunGard, which purchased Comdisco's hot-site business in 2001. But after six months, the foursome decided to strike out on their own.

The young company, which does not disclose revenues, has about 15 clients, including the Chicago Teachers' Pension and Retirement Fund, CCC Information Services, Allstate, Southwest Bancorp and Dave & Buster's restaurant and entertainment complexes.

Andy Efstathiou, program manager for Yankee Group's Technology Management Solutions group, said Corigelan is creating a new niche. The closest thing to what Corigelan does is when companies opt to develop disaster recovery plans internally, a time-consuming and expensive process with a steep learning curve, he said.

"Corigelan can save companies the trouble because they are solely focused on disaster planning. They already know the best practices in the industry," he said. "They're not selling specific products. They can save companies from buying more stuff than they need."

De Lisle said Corigelan initially assesses what its client have invested in, such as backup software, facilities, hardware and staff, and then formulates and implements a recovery and continuity plan.

When the state treasurer of Ohio's information technology operation was preparing its disaster recovery plan, it expected that a hot site might be in the offing, said James "Jaime" Davis, the treasurer's director of IT. But Corigelan's analysis showed a more economical solution, having Davis' office set up its own hot site, by reassigning servers and purchasing a new mainframe. The state is planning to set up its hot site in an office building eight miles from its data center.

"Our state is in a budgetary crisis. We needed a cost-effective plan for disaster recovery," Davis said.

The plan will cost the state $500,000, including the new mainframe and consulting services. De Lisle said this approach saved about $200,000 over a 36-month contract for a hot site. He said Corigelan saves its clients between 25 percent to 50 percent.

Davis said, "If we experience a disaster, such as a cut data cable or a fire, and our data center becomes unavailable, a tech will flip a switch and we'll be up and running in a matter of hours. Our people will work from their desks and won't notice the difference. It's seamless. Hopefully, we'll never need to use the plan. But I sleep better at night knowing we're up for the challenge."

Key components of a successful recovery plan

What does a disaster-recovery and business-continuity plan include?

"Many companies have some elements for a minimal disaster recovery plan in place, but typically they don't have them all," said Tim de Lisle, managing principal of Corigelan, the Chicago disaster recovery consulting company.

He said the basic points companies must cover include:

• An alternate facility in case of a disruption by a disaster, such as a hurricane or terrorist attack.
• Similar computing technology to that at the company's home available at the alternate site.
• Recently backed-up data stored off-site.
• A network to "re-connect" employees, vendors and suppliers to the recovery site.
• A team leader and staff assigned to go to the alternate site to restore computer systems, business processes, applications and connect people to the network.
• Established procedures that detail how to restore a database, re-establish network connections or configure a router.

De Lisle added: "I would also argue that testing your plan is vital."

Copyright © 2004. Chicago Sun-Times.