I’m constantly amazed at how casually many organization and people are with the information that they store on their computers, and these days, their smart phone, and how that can have disastrous results when everything starts going wrong.
The company that handles the streaming of our internet signal had what is referred to in the trade as a catastrophic disaster when their server died. It was co-located at a server farm, and the actual computer belonged to the hosting company.
You would think that it would be fairly straight forward for the hosting company to swap out the dead box and install, configure and restore the data to a new box, but that’s not the way it turned out.
The first problem was that the hosting company felt that the cost of replacing the computer should be borne by the customer. A quick review of the contact put that to bed quickly, as it was clearly stated that the cost of maintaining the computer was the hosting company’s responsibility. Next the hosting company declared that they owned all the data and programs. Again a pointed legal letter and a copy of the original agreement resolved that the company solely owned the data, and the hosting company surrendered the system back up.
Keep in mind, that while all of this bickering is going on, the streaming company is shut down and not generating a dime of revenue and receiving plentiful calls from their customers asking when service would be returned.
Finally, with back ups in hand and two weeks of suffering under their belt, our streaming provider is starting tests today on restoring our streamed signal online, thank god!
