Cyclone season in Far North Queensland officially runs from 1 November to 30 April. Most local businesses have a well-rehearsed plan for the physical side of it: tape the windows, tie down anything loose, clear the gutters, top up the generator fuel. Far fewer have a plan for the thing that is now just as critical to keeping the doors open — their data.
Here in Mission Beach we don’t need reminding what a severe cyclone can do. When Yasi crossed the coast in February 2011, businesses across the Cassowary Coast lost power for days, and in some cases weeks. Roads were cut, phone towers went down and buildings were damaged or flooded. The businesses that recovered fastest were not necessarily the ones with the least damage. They were the ones that could get back to their customers, their invoices and their bookings quickly.
With the wet season only weeks away, now is the time to ask a simple question: if your office was inaccessible tomorrow, could your business keep running?
What Actually Happens to an Office Server in a Cyclone
Plenty of small businesses in the region still run on a server in a back room or a cupboard, holding the accounting data, shared drives and line-of-business software. In a significant weather event, that server is exposed to a whole chain of risks:
- Power loss. A UPS buys you minutes, not days. If the power goes and the server doesn’t shut down cleanly, databases can be corrupted.
- Power surges. When the grid comes back on after an outage, surges and brownouts are common and can damage power supplies and disks.
- Water. Roof damage, wind-driven rain and storm surge all find their way to equipment that sits on, or near, the floor.
- Heat and humidity. No power means no air-conditioning. A sealed comms cupboard in a tropical summer gets very hot, very quickly.
- No internet. Even if the server survives, if the NBN is down nobody outside the building can reach it — and nobody can get into the building.
None of these are exotic scenarios. They are what a normal severe weather event looks like in the tropics.
A Backup Next to the Server Is Not a Backup
The most common gap we see is a business that does back up, diligently — to a USB drive or a NAS sitting on the shelf right beside the server. That protects you against a failed disk or an accidentally deleted file. It does nothing for you if the room floods, the roof comes off or the building is unsafe to enter. Both copies share exactly the same fate.
The long-standing rule of thumb is 3-2-1:
- 3 copies of your data (the live copy plus two backups)
- 2 different types of storage
- 1 copy off-site — and for a business in the cyclone belt, “off-site” should mean well outside the region, not the owner’s house down the road
Many organisations now add a further requirement: at least one copy that is immutable or offline, meaning it cannot be changed or deleted, even by an administrator. That same copy is your best defence against ransomware, so it pays for itself twice.
The Cloud Changes the Equation
The biggest shift in disaster resilience for small businesses over the past decade has been moving core systems out of the office altogether. When your email, files and key applications live in Microsoft 365 and Azure, they are hosted in professionally run data centres in Sydney and Melbourne, far from the storm track. The question changes from “did the server survive?” to “can my staff find an internet connection?” — and that is a much easier problem to solve.
In practical terms, that can look like:
- Email and files in Microsoft 365. Exchange Online, OneDrive, SharePoint and Teams mean staff can work from home, from a relative’s place in Cairns or Townsville, or from a laptop on a 4G hotspot.
- Cloud-based accounting. Platforms such as Xero or MYOB online remove the need to keep financial data on a local machine at all.
- Line-of-business applications in Azure. Software that can’t move to a SaaS product can often be lifted onto an Azure virtual machine or Azure Virtual Desktop, so it can be reached from anywhere.
- Azure Backup or Azure Site Recovery for anything that must stay on-premises, giving you an off-site copy — and, with Site Recovery, the ability to bring that server up in Azure if the original is lost.
One important caveat: Microsoft 365 is not, by itself, a backup. Microsoft keeps the service running, but under its shared responsibility model protecting your data from deletion, ransomware or a compromised account is your job. Deleted items are only retained for a limited time. A dedicated Microsoft 365 backup product or appropriately configured retention policies close that gap.
Don’t Forget Connectivity and People
Data being safe is only half the story. You also need to be able to reach it. A few things worth sorting out before the season starts:
- A backup internet connection. A 4G/5G router or a satellite service can keep a small team online when the NBN is down. Test it before you need it.
- Laptops over desktops. Staff who can pick up their device and leave are staff who can keep working.
- MFA and remote access that already works. The worst time to set up remote access for the first time is the day after a cyclone. Make sure everyone can sign in from outside the office now — securely, with multi-factor authentication.
- A contact list that isn’t on the server. Staff, key customers, suppliers, your insurer and your IT provider, printed and stored on everyone’s phones.
Your Pre-Season IT Checklist
If you only do one thing before November, work through this list:
- List every system your business can’t operate without, and where each one actually lives.
- Confirm you have at least one recent backup stored well outside the region.
- Test a restore. A backup you have never restored from is a hope, not a plan.
- Check that everyone can sign in to email and files from home, with MFA.
- Arrange a backup internet option and confirm it works.
- Make sure your UPS triggers a clean server shutdown, and the battery has been tested recently.
- Raise any equipment that sits on the floor, and know which gear to unplug before the storm arrives.
- Write down who does what — before, during and after — and share it with your team.
- Check your insurance for business interruption cover and what it requires from you.
- Book a post-season review so the plan improves every year.
How Electriclatte Can Help
We’re based in Mission Beach, so we understand exactly what local businesses are planning for. We can review your current setup, identify the single points of failure, and put a practical, affordable plan in place — whether that’s a fully tested off-site backup, a move to Microsoft 365, or migrating your key systems into Microsoft Azure. For a broader look at your technology risk, see our ICT management and strategy services.
The wet season is coming either way. Get in touch and let’s make sure your data is ready for it.