CANADIAN BLOOD SERVICES
104 patterns we ’ ve seen over the past five to 10 years is going to continue , and having two data centers that were literally next door to one another was probably not a good idea ,” says Grant . The review of Canadian Blood Services ’ systems not only exposed areas in the organization ’ s data centers that had single points of failure – areas which would have been both costly and disruptive to upgrade to Uptime Institute Tier Three certification – but also the threat posed by the state of its DR plan . “ Our contingency at the time was a cold site about four hours to the south in an IBM data center . In the event of the loss of data centers in Ottawa , the DR strategy was to drive down there , collect the necessary hardware and then restore our systems from backup tapes . The estimated recovery time for an event like that was between one and six days ,” Grant explains . “ When you ’ re a digital business , being down or out for 24 hours is a major issue . Being out for five or six days – well , you ’ re lucky if you survive .”
The need for revision of Canadian Blood Services ’ data center strategy was , to Grant , clear . Change , however , needed to be effected as safely as
SEPTEMBER 2019