Compuschmooze April 2014: Business continuity and disaster recovery moves to the Lam Cloud

Image (right) of the damage caused on Long Beach Island by Superstorm Sandy, and Lam Cloud corporate logo.
Image (right) of the damage caused on Long Beach Island by Superstorm Sandy, and Lam Cloud corporate logo. (Photo Copyright ©2011 Steve Lubetkin. All rights reserved.)

UPDATED 4/18/2014 TO INCLUDE VIDEO NEWS WRAPPER REPORT: When Super Storm Sandy ravaged New Jersey in 2011, small and medium sized businesses learned what larger companies had known for some time: If your business computer systems are disrupted, you could be out of business.

Thousands of small companies found that even once they got flooded stores cleaned up, and phone and power service was restored, they still couldn’t serve customers properly because the computers that managed inventories, orders, and deliveries weren’t functioning.

Large companies use remote data centers to back up their data, and have contracts that let them relocate their employees to “hot sites” where they can plug in computers and reroute their phones to remain in operation.

Now, disaster recovery and business continuity services are becoming more widely available – and their importance more widely understood, thanks to Sandy – for smaller companies. A recent tour of Lam Cloud Business and Continuity Services (www.lamcloud.com) in Cranbury, near Exit 8A of the New Jersey Turnpike, highlighted the importance of having some kind of technology disaster plan.

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Watch a video news wrapper report about Lam Cloud

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Lawrence Lam, chairman and founder of Lam Cloud, says the company history dates back about a decade. Lam says his vision for the company is helping clients “get the technology they need to be competitive on the global landscape and to stay in business” if a new storm knocks out services again.

According to Lam Cloud literature, “87% of businesses that go more than seven days without access to their corporate data go out of business within one year. Additionally, 80% of businesses that experience a major disaster but fail to implement a contingency plan will fall into liquidation within 18 months.”

Lam Cloud offers companies an affordable off-site option for their data storage. The company has 500,000 square feet of space in an office building that once housed an insurance company data and call center. Just like ServerMania Los Angeles Data Center, they too have a secure data server room where they can manage a company’s entire server network, or just provide backup services for the data you generate.

For companies that are not able to use their own facilities, Lam Cloud can provide space for up to 4,000 people to set up shop and work remotely in a secure, modern, open office environment. There are plenty of conference and meeting rooms, a cafeteria, a fitness center complete with showers and lockers, and parking for 2,000 cars on site at the facility, located at 1 Farr View Drive. There is even 30,000 square feet of conference and exhibit hall space in the building.

“Your workplace, you may think it’s fine, but if your people can’t get to it, if a tree falls on either your workplace or your home, your data may be safe but you can’t get to it, so you can’t function as a business,” explained Larry Lam. “If you have a contract with us, in the aftermath of a terrorist event or a hurricane or a snow storm, something that takes down the power for a few weeks at your workplace, and you can continue operations right here.”

Lam Cloud says they have 700 server cabinets of space in the data center with 5 megawatts of utility power and uninterruptible power supplies for redundancy. They also provide what they call “carrier neutral” connectivity with fiber optic cables feeding into major metropolitan hub in New York and northern New Jersey.

Lam Cloud can also provide customers with consulting and planning services for their disaster recovery programs.

“When we find out what a customer’s situation is, we can construct an overall solution that spans many different areas of technology,” said Larry Lam.

The costs are surprisingly low – a small business can get a bundle of services for up to 10 users for just $150 a month.

Write to me at steve@compuschmooze.com if you have questions about disaster recovery or if you have a story to tell about your experience recovering business data.

 

 

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