Fires, earthquakes and floods may make for big bucks at the box office, but these natural disasters can spell financial disaster for carriers if they affect storage systems and destroy stored data.

Information-on billing, call data and marketing trends-is becoming a valuable commodity. Yet this asset can be destroyed by as simple a problem as a power outage unless steps are taken to safeguard data. Mirroring, redundant array of inexpensive disk systems and the inclusion of hot-swappable components have made local storage more resilient, but when an entire facility is underwater or has been razed by fire, the components' capabilities become moot.

Carriers are able to distribute their data at a variety of sites by mirroring recorded data and grooming data to appropriate subsystems for analysis and use in marketing, planning, billing and other activities. AT&T, MCI and Sprint have become so adept in this that they offer recovery services for their corporate customers. But regardless of the carrier's size, the protection of data starts from the bottom of the organization, according to storage experts.

"Successful disaster recovery starts at the most basic level," said Stanley Zaffos, manager of storage strategies for San Jose-based Amdahl Corp. "It's a multiphase problem. You first have to make sure you're recording data properly to begin with. Then it gets into a situation much like a smaller company that needs to do backups and restores on a consistent basis.

For carriers, the key is to ensure that important data is stored in multiple, mirrored locations and can be restored to replacement devices. Distributed systems allow carriers to switch the storage tasks of a damaged or destroyed facility to other parts of its organization until repairs can be affected, then restore data to allow the repaired facility to do its job.

"There is no question that the advent of distributed systems has increased the scope of disaster recovery planning efforts," said Bruce Battjer, president of Wayne, Pa.-based software firm SunGard Planning Solutions Inc. "[Carriers] want to protect the entire enterprise, not just the central mainframe.

This process-known in storage parlance as replication-comes in two forms: synchronous and asynchronous. Synchronous replication always requires a rapid level of recovery because this type of real-time replication is a logical choice for carriers, which need data to complete calls. Organizations considering synchronous replication should plan on some form of self-healing network or high-speed dial backup capability.

Asynchronous replication is more forgiving but, depending on user requirements, may be just as demanding.

Although spreading data around a carrier's facilities can safeguard data, it can also raise management problems. "When you start moving data to other sites, you get into a situation where some part of the backup operation is being conducted by a storage 'non-pro,'" said Zaffos. "And of course, the more humans you involve in an operation, the more opportunity you have for them to introduce errors.

The complexity and number of storage systems needs to be planned carefully because the investment required to set them up is significant at the carrier level.

Another major hurdle for carriers is the testing of a data restoration system. "Given that carriers' applications environments are always changing, testing to make sure recovered data can actually be put back into use is extremely important," Zaffos said.

As critical as these issues are, "disaster recovery only becomes visible during times of disaster," he said. "Then again, if you quantify the cost of lost data and its impact on your organization, it doesn't seem like such an insignificant and invisible part of the carriers' operations."

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