Bangkok floods raise demand for disaster recovery sites

PHUKET/MUMBAI: It's been close to two months since Bangkok, Thailand's capital city, has been fighting against Chao Phraya river's raging flood waters and hoping for human survival.

Flood waters in city's central parts have left several hundreds dead and rendered thousands homeless.

That has come as a wake up call for business and commercial establishments which are in search of disaster recovery (DR) sites to support their trade activities and customer needs.

Giving an account of the situation and business impact, Passakorn Kongsyok, United Information Highway Co., Ltd.(UIH)'s Department Director of International Business said, “In last two weeks seven industrial parks have been affected by floods. As we speak, two out of seven parks have fully recovered but the remaining will take nearly two-three weeks. Customers will be able to start their businesses by mid January.”

UIH is one of the three private telecommunication service providers of Thailand and it has two DR sites — one in Bangkok and second outside the city.

“Due to floods, many customers are demanding DR sites outside the city. They demand services like co-location or relocation, SSL VPN for employees to work from home and temporary DR sites to support branch offices and provide high bandwidths for short duration,” Kongsyok told CyberMedia News over phone from Bangkok.

In terms of city's IT infrastructure and networks, the damage was just two percent but overall impact of that damage on businesses and enterprises is very huge, he estimated.

Floods have badly hit the manufacturing plants of many IT hardware and consumer device companies that operate in Thailand causing delay in production supply to international markets.

According to Kongsyok, Bangkok city is the country's biggest commercial and trade hub as most of the service providers and IT infrastructure are based here.

“However, due to these floods, large companies and organizations like banks are looking for disaster recovery sites in other parts of Thailand. Though government is trying to push IT infrastructure in Chiang Mai and Phuket city, it is yet to develop there,” he explained.

UIH has presence in Singapore, Malaysia, Cambodia and Laos. “Technically, Bangkok-based customers can be offered disaster recovery sites from the neighboring countries but it would be very expensive for customers,” Kongsyok opined.

Though the flood waters have started to recede, it is leaving the business and commercial establishments to find answer for the key question, “What will happen next year?”

“Every company is now thinking about what will happen next year and it's really hard to think,” Kongsyok noted.

(Author was hosted by NetEvents APAC & Analyst Press Summit in Phuket, Thailand)