A practical checklist for testing backups, UPS systems, recovery procedures, and outage response before severe weather disrupts operations.
Key Takeaways:
- What should an I.T. business continuity plan include?
- How often should backups and UPS systems be checked?
- How can businesses prepare for outages?
Will your business continuity plan for I.T. protect you in the coming fall storm season?
Fall storms are notorious for causing power loss, internet disruption, hardware damage, and extended downtime.
Before the next one hits Seattle, it’s essential to verify that your backups, power protection, and recovery procedures are actually solid.
Do you have reliable working systems, documented responsibilities, and tested recovery procedures, or are you inadvertently making false assumptions about your I.T.?
Let’s walk through what your business needs before storm season arrives.
What Should an I.T. Business Continuity Plan Include?
Your business continuity plan for I.T. should identify the systems the business cannot operate without and define how those systems will be protected, restored, and supported during an outage.
That includes:
- Critical business systems and applications.
- Data backup and recovery procedures.
- UPS and power protection measures.
- Internet and communication contingencies.
- Employee roles and escalation paths.
- Vendor and emergency contact information.
- Recovery priorities and acceptable downtime.
- Remote work procedures.
The plan should be stored somewhere accessible during an outage and be specific enough for employees to follow under pressure.
That said, your business continuity plan for I.T. is only valuable when tested.
What’s my action item? Review whether your current business continuity plan for I.T. answers “who does what, in what order” during an outage.
Confirm That Backups Are Current and Recoverable
When’s the last time someone checked your backups?
Do you know:
- What data and systems are being backed up?
- How often backups run?
- Whether recent backups completed successfully?
- Where backup copies are stored?
- Whether backups are protected from ransomware?
- How long is data retained?
- Who receives alerts when a backup fails?
If you’re not sure, check in with I.T. and ask whether they’ve tested the recovery process.
Can your business reliably restore files, applications, and systems from your backups? Don’t just assume it can.
Keith Yunxi Zhu, co-founder and chief executive of TKEG Expat, explains why simply having a copy is not enough: “‘There’s a copy on the box’ is not ‘it’s offsite, versioned, and I can restore it.’ An audit found the server holding our chatbot’s transcripts had no offsite copy—one instance, one failure from gone. The fix: a private encrypted bucket, versioning on, syncing every fifteen minutes. Worst-case data loss is now fifteen minutes.”
According to TechTarget, only 42% of data backups succeed.
Regular testing reveals whether your business has:
- Missing data.
- Corrupted backup files.
- Incorrect permissions.
- Unclear restoration procedures.
- Recovery times that exceed business expectations.
And that’s why it’s critical to your overall I.T. business continuity strategy.
What’s my action item? Don’t consider backups reliable until you’ve successfully restored data from them.
Inspect UPS Systems and Power Protection
With backup and recovery tested, the next thing to consider is power.
Your business likely has UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) systems that keep essential technology running through brief outages and give equipment time to shut down safely during longer ones.
Before the fall season, check:
- Which devices are connected to each UPS.
- Battery age, condition, and warning alerts.
- Estimated runtime.
- Surge protection.
- Network equipment and internet hardware.
- Server and storage protection.
- Automatic shutdown settings.
That said, there are some things to point out regarding UPS systems.
First, they are not designed to keep an office operating indefinitely, but rather to bridge short interruptions, protect equipment, and support an orderly shutdown. So they cannot carry the whole I.T. business continuity strategy.
Secondly, avoid overloading UPS equipment. Plugging too many devices into UPS units reduces available runtime and can prevent the system from working.
Finally, always ensure your UPS systems are set up to prioritize critical equipment over nonessential devices.
What’s my action item? Ask I.T. to inspect the health status of your UPS systems and confirm that all critical equipment is connected.
Review Internet and Communication Contingencies
Power outages aren’t always the biggest problem during storms. Sometimes, the electricity returns before your internet or phone service does. And you need to plan for that in advance as well.
Liz Kolb, co-founder and CEO of Axion Now, offers a practical example of why backup power alone is not enough: “Large venues here in the UK have a diesel generator backup as standard, so mains power failure is not the crisis we fear. The real vulnerability is internet connectivity. A generator keeps the lights on but does nothing for a downed ISP line, and for hybrid or livestreamed events that would be a disaster. Our tech manager packs a 4G failover router as a standard piece of kit.”
- Do you have a backup internet connection?
- Can key employees use mobile hotspots if necessary?
- Can your phone system be accessed remotely or forwarded to mobile devices?
- Do employees know where to find updates during an outage?
- Can remote staff securely access business applications?
- How will you communicate with customers if normal channels are unavailable?
Just like your backups, don’t assume remote access works simply because it’s been configured. Test it. Have employees connect from outside the office. Confirm they can access the applications, files, and communication tools they’ll need if they can’t work from the office.
What’s my action item? Pick three employees who regularly work in the office and ask them to connect remotely this week. Verify that they can access everything they would need to remain productive during an outage.
Document Recovery Priorities
Not every system can or should be restored at the same time.
With that in mind, you should decide which systems matter most and prioritize them in your business continuity plan for I.T.
That order can be something like:
- Safety and employee communication.
- Network and internet connectivity.
- Core business applications.
- Customer and financial systems.
- Shared files and collaboration tools.
- Secondary or noncritical systems.
While documenting priorities, establish recovery time objective (RTO) and recovery point objective (RPO) metrics that align with your actual business needs.
Determine how quickly each system needs to be restored, how much recent data you can afford to lose, and build your I.T. business continuity around it.
What’s my action item? Rank your top five systems by how fast you’d need each one back.
Establish Clear Escalation Paths
Who do employees contact when an outage, hardware failure, or backup issue occurs?
That’s another thing you should plan for. When disaster roles and escalation paths aren’t clearly defined and documented, it can lead to extended downtime. And that’s something you want to avoid.
Your business continuity plan for I.T. should identify:
- Who declares a continuity event.
- Who contacts the IT provider.
- Who communicates with employees.
- Who updates customers or vendors.
- Who approves emergency purchases.
- How issues are escalated after hours.
- Where emergency contact information is stored.
Also avoid relying on one employee’s memory, as it can create a single point of failure. What if a storm hits and you can’t reach that person?
What’s my action item? Review your escalation path. Make sure every responsibility has both a primary owner and a backup contact.
How Often Should Backups and UPS Systems Be Checked?
There’s no hard and fast rule on how often businesses should check their backups and UPS systems. The right frequency should reflect the importance of the systems and the amount of downtime your business can tolerate.
As a practical guide:
- Backup jobs should be monitored regularly for failures.
- File or system recovery tests should be conducted on a scheduled basis.
- UPS systems should be visually inspected and tested periodically.
- Battery age and replacement recommendations should be tracked.
- Continuity procedures should be reviewed before severe-weather seasons.
- The full plan should be updated after major technology, staffing, or location changes.
That said, you should conduct at least two tabletop business continuity plan testing exercises annually.
Conduct a Simple Continuity Exercise
Gather operations and I.T leaders biannually to walk through potential disasters.
For instance, imagine a scenario where a severe fall storm causes a prolonged power outage. Your office network is unavailable, your internet provider is experiencing widespread disruptions, and employees need immediate access to customer information from home.
At that moment:
- Who is notified first?
- Which systems must be restored?
- Can employees work remotely?
- Are backup files accessible?
- How will customers be updated?
- What happens if the outage lasts one day? Three days?
- Who documents decisions and next steps?
Exercises like this often reveal missing documentation, outdated contact lists, unclear responsibilities, and assumptions that no one realized existed.
Finding those gaps early is far better than discovering them during an actual emergency.
Testimony Akinkunmi, compliance lead at Onpoint Ltd, recommends making the exercise more demanding: “Run a tabletop exercise where you deliberately remove the tools people rely on, no Slack, no email, no ticketing system, and ask the team to manage a simulated incident using only what’s documented offline. In every exercise I’ve experienced, the first thing that breaks is communication: people don’t know who to call or what the fallback channel is. The exercise forces those gaps into the open before a real outage does.”
Common Business Continuity Gaps
Mistakes businesses frequently overlook include;
- Assuming successful backups are automatically recoverable.
- Using aging UPS batteries without testing them.
- Protecting servers but not network equipment.
- Storing the continuity plan only on the company network.
- Failing to assign clear decision-makers.
- Depending on one employee or vendor contact.
- Ignoring internet and communication outages.
- Failing to update the plan after systems change.
- Having no process for communicating with employees or customers.
These gaps inevitably lead to preventable downtime and slower recovery, which is why you should avoid them at all costs.
Frequently Asked Questions About I.T. Business Continuity Planning
1. What should an I.T. business continuity plan include?
It should identify critical systems, backup procedures, recovery priorities, power protection, communication methods, employee responsibilities, escalation contacts, and documented steps for restoring operations.
2. How often should backups be tested?
Backups should be monitored regularly, and recovery tests should be performed on a scheduled basis based on the importance of the data and the business’s tolerance for downtime.
3. How often should UPS systems be checked?
UPS equipment should be inspected and tested periodically, with battery age, runtime, alerts, and replacement recommendations tracked before problems occur.
4. How can a business prepare for a power outage?
The business should test UPS equipment, confirm backups, document shutdown and recovery procedures, establish communication plans, and prepare remote-work or backup connectivity options.
5. Is a backup the same as a business continuity plan?
No. Backups protect data, but a continuity plan also addresses people, communications, power, connectivity, responsibilities, recovery priorities, and the steps required to resume operations.
6. Who should be involved in continuity planning?
Business owners, operations leaders, I.T. staff or providers, department leaders, and anyone responsible for employee, customer, vendor, or emergency communications should participate.
Test Before Severe Weather Arrives
Business continuity isn’t determined by a document alone. It requires tested backups, functioning UPS systems, clear responsibilities, and recovery steps that everyone in your team understands.
Not sure where your business stands? Schedule a continuity and backup review with Attentus Technologies and move forward with confidence.