A large forest fire started in Halifax, Nova Scotia yesterday that provided me with a stark reminder of the importance of disaster recovery and business continuity plans.

I heard about this fire as I drove home from a customer's location where I am, amongst other activities, coordinating a disaster recovery plan for their infrastructure.

It just so happens that one of their primary datacenters is only 3 km from the site of this fire. Three kilometers might seem like a far distance until (as shown in the picture above) you take into perspective the shear size of this fire.


Often people think of disaster recovery in abstract terms, much in the same way that they think of insurance. This event served as a great real-world reminder of why these plans are crucial.  Had this fire migrated in the direction of the datacentre there is a good chance that my customer would have lost a significant amount of data, infrastructure and (inevitably) customers.


The moral of this story is.. . disasters happen all the time so get your plan developed and implemented asap!