Help from Above: Five Reasons to Consider Using Satellite Technology for Disaster Recovery

In the real world, that situation can be nothing more than a pipe dream. After all, disaster recovery and business continuity professionals need to prove ROI to the C-suite. They can’t be running around installing expensive satellite backups at every turn, with no regard for cost or ROI.

But what if it isn’t a pipe dream? What if satellite technology can enhance DR and make sense for the bottom line?

“One of the big issues with the satellite world is people just don’t understand it,” says Rick Swiers, Vice President of Marketing with Agiosat Global Communications. “They’re not really sure what it can and cannot do. They haven’t envisioned it.”

Is satellite technology a viable DR strategy? Here are five reasons to think about (before a disaster!) using satellite as part of your DR plan.

1: It’s not as expensive as you think
While satellite technology has become more powerful in the past 10 years, it’s also come down in price in just about every area. The price of hardware and even bandwidth has decreased substantially.

“Satellites are built faster, cheaper and better,” says Agiosat’s Swiers. “Instead of being a very expensive technology, it’s become more in line with terrestrial technology.”

Not only is it cheaper than before, you can also do a lot more, Swiers says. You might think of only using satellite phones, but you can use satellite to send any data you can convert to an IP stream.

“I make phone calls using the satellite, with results that are similar to what you get with a normal terrestrial line,” Swiers says. “I transfer data at broadband-type speeds – or greater. I do geo-conferencing. I send and receive faxes. Anything that can be converted to an IP stream or a traditional video stream can now go over satellite The state of the art is now at a level that users can’t tell whether they are using terrestrial or satellite connectivity.”

2: It’s quickly configurable
One of the best things about satellite is how quickly your systems can be up and running after something knocks out your terrestrial lines.

“If the terrestrial communication system breaks down, this is where a satellite dish and satellite modem can be directed very quickly,” Swiers says. “I still have my Internet access. I still have the ability to make or receive telephone calls. In other words, I don’t lose the functionality, or have communication reduced so that my business has difficulty communicating with the outside world or within itself during that time of disaster.”

Take, for example, the case of the backhoe cutting a fiber line in front of your building. With satellite backup, Swiers says, you can have service restored in literally less than five minutes.

Even in cases of extreme disaster, a satellite can have you back up and running quickly. When the 2004 and 2005 hurricanes struck, for example, terrestrial communication lines were out of commission for some lengthy periods of time. But Swiers says his company was able to get people online in anywhere from just a few minutes to one week.

“Two hurricane seasons ago, we got a call from a government agency,” Swiers says. “They said, ‘Can you help us?’ We built the systems, and literally drove them out to various sites. Some sites were getting satellite service in as little as 10 to 12 hours. The last one took about a week to get there.”

3: You can’t assume you’ll be able to get satellite equipment after a disaster
Great, you say, but since I can get it up and running so quickly after a disaster, why don’t I just wait and see if a disaster hits and order it then? That way, I won’t have any expense at all unless disaster actually strikes. After all, what are the chances that will happen?

Yes, you can certainly order a satellite system after a disaster, but you do risk not having one available when you need it. If you’re stuck in a regional disaster – like a hurricane, earthquake or tornado – everyone is going to want satellite, Swiers says.

“During last hurricane season, as the hurricanes were bearing down, people suddenly said, ‘I need satellite phones as my backup,'” he says. “They took the entire marketplace. Within a day or two, there was not one satellite phone anywhere in the country that anybody could buy at any price.

“I wouldn’t count on being able to say, ‘Oh, a disaster just happened. I’ll just ring up these folks and they’ll have something to me lickety split,'” he adds. “That may or may not be the case.”

4: You can stay close to home
Many companies use hot sites away from their primary offices to get IT and telecom working after a disaster. You don’t have a huge outlay of equipment, and if something happens to your system, you just go to the nearest hot site and get back to work.

Only that doesn’t always work in the case of a regional disaster. All of a sudden, hot sites close to the area may end up with a deluge of clients. In that case, it is first come, first served. If you’re not there first, you could be sent across the country.

“That’s a big problem,” Swiers admits. “Even if [the hot spot] is two hours away, people still object heavily to that because they don’t want to be that far away from their families who are trying to cope with the same disaster.”

If part of your DR goal is to keep things running as normally as possible, you should check out satellite, Swiers says.

“If your own building is severely damaged, you can go find a local hotel ballroom to operate out of,” he says. “That’s where the portability of the satellite comes in. At least people are nearer their loved ones.”

5: You can use it for more than just DR
But satellite technology may just be too much of an investment, even as part of a good DR plan. The fact is, executives in the C-suite like to see ROI. Can you use satellite for more than just backup?

You can, Swiers says, and, depending on your business, it may even be more cost-effective than terrestrial technology alone. If you have, for example, workers in remote locations, you can use satellite connectivity to augment your terrestrial telecom system.

“It goes to places traditional terrestrial communications don’t go, but it works in exactly the same way and works in cooperation with your main telephone system back at your office,” Swiers says. “You can take a phone out to the middle of nowhere, plug it in, and you still have your telephone available to you. You can have broadband data connectivity. Even out where they don’t even know what a telephone looks like, because it’s just too remote.”

“In other words, where it’s appropriate and affordable to use terrestrial technology, you do that,” he adds. “But when reasonable terrestrial communication is not available, you can use the satellite as your primary. Then you also have it available in a disaster situation as backup.”

About the Company
Agiosat is a global provider of satellite-based communications solutions for government, enterprise and commercial customers. The company is a vertically integrated satellite provider that owns and operates its own telecommunications hubs, shares infrastructure with other carriers and distributes the services of other network operations. Agiosat was named by the World Teleport Association as the fastest growing teleport on the globe in 2005. Contact Agiosat at (818) 526-1700 or at www.agiosat.com.