Damage caused by heavy rain, wind, and other natural disasters can seriously impact business continuity. Power outages can stop manufacturing and service provision, the operation of institutions, and life in cities. In addition, lost revenue due to downtime may not be the only misfortune; there is also the risk of losing critical data without secure data storage solutions and data loss prevention strategies such as IT infrastructure backup and disaster recovery plan in place.
Natural Disasters: A Major Risk to Business Continuity
Even though extreme weather can disrupt online services, nowadays, documents and files are stored digitally in many industries, and IT systems operate in cloud infrastructure managed by data centers. Probably, daily, most people rely on the idea that nothing like this will ever happen to them and do not even consider the potential impact on business continuity. However, unexpected IT infrastructure or network malfunctions, power outages, or other risks leading to downtimes and data loss are common.
The Global Risks Report 2024 by the World Economic Forum states that environmental risks dominate the landscape. The World Risk Report 2023 shows exposure risks to natural disasters in 193 countries. The image below highlights some of them in various classification thresholds. The Baltic region countries —Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia — have some of the lowest exposures to extreme weather and natural disasters, proving it is a relatively calmer region from a climate perspective to store your data securely.
World Risk Index 2023, Exposure to Natural Disasters
Data Centers: The Gold Standard for IT Infrastructure & Service Continuity
Data centers IT infrastructure is equipped with backup power supplies, redundant network connections, and systems for uninterrupted operation of data and equipment. For example, to provide IT services continuity in Delska's data centers in Riga and Vilnius there are several independent power lines with continuous power supply. In case of a power blackout, the operation of the data center will continue because the uninterruptible power supply systems, or UPS, will ensure electricity supply until several standby diesel generators resume electricity production. Multiple SDMO & AKSA diesel generators and APC Symmetra, Socomec & Vertiv UPS systems at data centers can operate autonomously for an extended period while waiting for power to be restored. This way, business continuity is maintained even in unforeseen circumstances, such as power outages, allowing IT infrastructure to operate without interruption.
Other types of risks are minimized for data centers, either. The buildings are built according to the highest safety standards to withstand natural disasters such as floods, storms, and earthquakes. There is also strict access control — 24/7 physical security and video surveillance, as well as access control mechanisms for rooms of various importance, including a biometric system.
Certified Partner for Securing Critical Infrastructure
With data center services, companies can focus on their core business instead of maintaining and managing IT infrastructure. Delska has been the first ISO 22301:2019 certified data center operator in the Baltics. The Business Continuity Management System certificate is an independent confirmation that the data center has implemented the most effective and fastest ways to protect the operation of all components of its critical infrastructure in the event of an emergency. In addition, the data center employs highly qualified professionals trained to overcome crisis and risk situations at any time.
Secure Business IT Infrastructure
For companies worldwide, Delska provides full-spectrum IT infrastructure services to ensure business continuity in several European data center locations and a robust and reliable data transmission network. Backup infrastructure in geographically diverse data center locations and broad network connections enable our customers to implement a best-practice disaster recovery plan.
Delska offers not only IT equipment colocation and rack rental in secure data centers in Riga, Vilnius, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, and Stockholm but also a wide range of other IT services, including private and public cloud, security, and data transmission solutions and IT system management and administration services.
Although the additional expense might keep companies from implementing better data protection solutions, one thing has to be crystal clear — in case of a power outage and downtime caused by it, financial losses might far outweigh the cost of data center services. In addition, ignoring potential risks can sometimes be crucial to a company's viability. Therefore, implementing a disaster recovery plan and choosing a data center wisely is a kind of business insurance that should be carefully evaluated.
* In 2024, to celebrate 25 years of data center and network expertise, a new brand, Delska, was launched by merging the Latvian company DEAC Data Center Operator and the Lithuanian Data Logistics Center (DLC).