Phoenix IT : New blog post - Has Microsoft shown the future of workarea recovery?

Microsoft has been showing more of Windows 10 to the press and developers, getting them ready for the role out of the new operating system starting in the 3rd quarter of this year.

What it's shown is what many have been talking about for years, a single operating system that is the same from phone to PC, with everything able to work on any device, despite the physical differences in technology.

So given the prominence of Microsoft applications in the workplace, how could this affect workarea recovery?

Currently you will have a PC and/or laptop in the office and a work mobile in your pocket. When you go home tonight you will take the work mobile and maybe the laptop. If an incident happens in the business during the day you are told to leave everything and vacate the office….

This is where workarea recovery is so important, you have lost use all your PCs and maybe laptops straight off. For those who don't keep their mobile phone on them, that is gone too. So you need replacement technology available at another site. Or do you?

Because now there is Windows 10. Now your work mobile could be the temporary replacement of your laptop or PC as well as your phone. You just need to be able to connect a monitor and a keyboard to turn your mobile - which will already be enterprise ready with all the company security requirements baked in and meeting all the company hardware and software setup requirements - into a practical device to use in a disaster. There may be accountants looking at this for normal work practices as well!

There will be those people that this won't work for, such as the call centre staff, city market traders and users of larger, more CPU intensive applications. But as processors get faster and people move over to computer based phones, Cloud-based apps and virtual desktop interfaces, even these roles may be able to work in this way in the future.

So what does this mean for workarea recovery as we know it? Well, many of the reasons people need recovery sites is because teams need to work together and this will not change. But what may change, is the need to have the same amount of equipment in a work area site. Show up with your work mobile and you will find a set of monitors and keyboards available. Sit down, plug in the phone and access you company data straight away from the back up servers onsite, in one of your own company data centres or in the Cloud - no delay, no relearning where everything is on the desktop.

Also for all the staff who aren't critical they can easily work from home. Especially if the event is long term and capacity issues are a problem. That is if they have a company phone.

So does it mean that work area recovery can be removed from the budget lines of company accounts? Probably not, the nature of business is working together and working in an emergency needs this more than anything else.

So what does it mean? The way you access your data while in the recovery site will change, the work to maintain the site so that computers there are the same as the computers in your office will become almost a non-issue. I say almost, because while someone will not have their phone with them, the majority will.

Those staff who you cannot afford to have workarea seats for, can work faster and more flexibly. Those who do have workarea capability will have faster recovery times as the phone is already on and connected when you walk in the door, whether that's four hours after the start of an emergency or 10 minutes.

What is clear in all this, is that once again technology is shaking the tree and we'll have to see what falls out and how that will relate to workarea recovery.

Guy Cullum is a BCM Assurance Consultant at Phoenix

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