What Happens When Your IT Goes Down? A Plan B for Business Continuity
It’s a scenario no organisation wants to face, but one we must all prepare for. Imagine your device flashes a ransomware warning. The Windows partition is inaccessible. Your systems are completely locked down. What do you do? In most cases, the only option is a hard reboot, and hoping for the best. But hope isn't a strategy.
This is a situation I see creating huge risks for businesses, especially in critical sectors like healthcare. When systems go down in a hospital, it’s not just about lost data or productivity; it can directly impact patient care in the ICU, the emergency department, or the operating theatre. The consequences can be dire.
This is where a robust business continuity plan becomes non-negotiable. It's about having a seamless, pre-planned "Plan B" that activates the moment "Plan A" is compromised.
Rethinking Recovery: Beyond the Hard Reboot
Traditionally, recovering from a major system failure or a malware attack is a painful, time-consuming process. But what if you could bypass the compromised system entirely and get your team back online in minutes?
This is something we've been deeply focused on at Teba. We've partnered with iGel, who have developed a solution that acts as a safety net, built directly into your existing end devices. It starts with a simple software deployment—an MSI or executable that profiles the machine, carves out a small, separate partition (just 16 gig), and sets itself up quietly in the background. It works alongside your existing security, fully compliant with tools like BitLocker, so there’s no compromise on your security posture.
The Dual-Boot Difference in a Crisis
Now, let's return to that crisis scenario. Your Windows instance on your end device is compromised. Instead of facing a dead end, you simply reboot the machine. Upon restart, you're presented with a bootloader menu. You select the alternate option, and within moments, you're booted into a secure, independent environment.
From this new workspace, you have access to everything you need to maintain business continuity:
Standard web apps
VDI connection clients
Native Linux-based applications
Even a hypervisor
This means your team can continue their work without missing a beat. In a healthcare setting, it ensures that staff can still access patient records, manage critical equipment, and deliver uninterrupted care. It prevents the need to divert patients or shut down essential services.
Mobility and Flexibility: The USB Boot Option
We also recognise that continuity needs to be flexible. That’s why iGel offers a USB boot capability. This allows you to carry a secure operating system on a simple USB device. If a machine is completely unusable, you can plug in the USB, boot from it, and instantly have a functional, secure workspace. It’s a powerful tool for disaster recovery, allowing you to failover to another data centre or spin up an AVD desktop as a backup without disruption.
Ensuring Your Recovery Plan is Always Ready
A recovery solution is only as good as its management platform. To support this, iGel also introduced UMS (Universal Management Suite) as a service. This provides a fully isolated, dedicated management console just for your business continuity environment. It ensures that even if your primary management systems are affected, your recovery plan remains intact and ready to deploy.
The key takeaway is this: you need a plan that allows you to maintain operations, protect your data, and serve your customers or patients, no matter what happens. It's about building resilience directly into your IT framework.
Are you prepared for a worst-case scenario? Let's have a conversation about your current business continuity strategy and explore how we can strengthen it.
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