Days like today

With the heaviest snow storm for eighteen years, London comes to a stand still. The bus network closes and with tubes and rail severely affected, firms in London start calling their staff to tell them not to bother travelling into work. So, with the estimated cost to the economy predicted to be in the region of £1.2bn, who are the winners and losers?

Well, there might not be any winners, other than the kids in the park! But, you can be sure that the companies who implemented an effective disaster recovery solution were patting themselves on their backs. I’ve worked on a few solutions to support home working via Citrix and SSL VPNs, which have quickly been adopted to become a core component of DR planning.

The dangers of success, however, need to be mitigated. When DR solutions are used, they tend to be pushed to the extreme. So, take care when planning. Typically, the main danger are; Internet bandwidth, ensure the capacity exists to allow each Citrix user 30 Kbytes of bandwidth and there is adequate VPN capacity and licenses. Finally, ensure back-end Citrix server performance. All three can be the downfall to a very successful DR system.

On a more end-user focused note, ensure all core business applications are available and users understand which applications can be accessed remotely. For financial institutions, some limitations exist on what type of data can be accessed from none company premise – check with your compliance department.

It is days like today that Citrix proves its real value.