DowntimeCost.com is a new free tool that helps companies with disaster planning.

Toronto, Ontario -- (SBWIRE) -- 09/03/2010 -- DowntimeCost.com is a new web site that helps businesses evaluate the potential risks associated with unplanned server and network downtime through a series of very simple self-assessment questions and simulations.

Corporate IT departments are struggling to manage rapidly-growing company data. At the same time, advances in online technology are causing customers to demand 24/7 service from companies. As a result, disaster recovery planning is becoming more complex and downtime is becoming more expensive.

This is also a very critical time for IT managers. Budgets are getting frozen or slashed while the risks associated with unplanned downtime are growing. Although technology workers are acutely aware of this trend, they often have problems when it comes time to convince their superiors to allocate the proper resources to tackle this threat.

The Downtime Cost Calculator allows IT managers to present their case to company executives in a language that they understand... the language of real-world facts and numbers. Using simulations based on real business data, companies can calculate the hard costs of typical downtime incidents. This number is further broken down to show its direct impact on revenue and productivity.

In a typical datacenter failure scenario, it may take 5 hours or more to re-build servers and bring these systems back online. For a small company with 20 employees and annual revenue of $5,000,000, this might come out to over $17,000 in damages for a single downtime incident.

These costs are also subdivided into functional business areas as a means of better illustrating the urgency of an optimized recovery plan to other stakeholders within the company.

Experts at Storagepipe suggest that this is a very conservative estimate, since other intangible costs would also be incurred. These include things such as damaged reputation, legal liability, and customer attrition.

According to Storagepipe president Steven Rodin: "The economy is tough right now, and budgets are tight. In times like this, it's critical for businesses to minimize risk, since there's very little extra cash available to deal with unexpected emergencies. A single unanticipated disaster is all it can take to wipe out a 20-year-old company overnight."

If you'd like to try the Downtime Cost Calculator and learn about how to minimize the threats associated with unplanned server outages, you can visit http://downtimecost.com. And companies looking for high-availability systems and business continuity assistance can contact Storagepipe directly at http://storagepipe.com.

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

New video series on YouTube devoted to data protection, compliance and email management

Toronto, Ontario -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/23/2010 -- No business owner likes to think that something unpleasant might happen to their company. But unless these problems and worst-case scenarios are confronted in advance, the costs of being unprepared can be astronomical.

This is why repairing a problem at the last minute is often more expensive than preventative maintenance.

When a legal discovery request catches a company unprepared, it's rarely an accident. These companies have usually been aware of the need for an ediscovery plan for years. But they just keep procrastinating and leaving it off for later. The lack of immediate urgency means that these types of preparations can get pushed off to the side while the company puts out more urgent fires.

Unfortunately, companies that approach legal protection in this way often end up with more expensive and severe legal problems later down the road.

In response to this threat, Storagepipe (http://storagepipe.com) has composed an educational video serries that outlines the benefits of cloud-based email archive and ediscovery solutions in such a way that even the most non-technical business executives can easily understand. But more importantly, these videos show why ediscovery preparedness is so urgent, and what the consequences can be for companies who are caught off-guard.

In the first video, they follow the story of Claire, who is struggling to keep up with the maintenance workload associated with running her corporate email servers. This story clearly shows how implementing an effective email archiving system can help reduce IT costs and simplify information management.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxnH8QP3ZTE

The second video follows the story of Ben, after a lawsuit requires him to sift through years worth of old backup tapes in order to retrieve a few important documents for a lawsuit. In this story, viewers can see how expensive a large, detailed search of this kind can be... and how a cloud-based search solution can help minimize those costs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCqU2l14Vps

These two videos combine to show the importance of electronic discovery planning... using very straight-forward language and visual stories. For organizations where multiple decision makers must approve such a decision, these videos can be used to make the case in such a way that the benefits are clear to everyone involved.

For more information about ediscovery, or other videos from Storagepipe's What If series - you can visit Storagepipe's YouTube Channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/storagepipe

In addition to email data protection, Storagepipe also offers a range of backup software and high availability solutions for business. To get in touch directly with Storagepipe, you can visit their web site at http://storagepipe.com.

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm