I have been consulting for over 10 years with companies using Microsoft Great Plains. Over the past decade of experiences some of the most devastating experiences were when a phone call came in from a Great Plains user that was having various system problems. After discussing the various issues with the Great Plains user I would immediately prioritize the problem as a system down issue and immediately started driving to the location and start working thought the various issues causing the Great Plains system from operating. In this case the company had 12 locations and was around a 60 Million dollar operation that was operating all business processes using Microsoft Great Plains. After more discoveries I was told that I was the second Great Plains consultant they had called and the first consultant could not get the system back up. I quickly realized that the Great Plains data stored in a Microsoft SQL server was down. SQL server services were stopped.

I asked the Controller where the last system back up was and since this was a new site I needed to have access to the back up server and needed the takes that were used for backing up the Great Plains system.

I looked at the logs in the tape back up system and quickly noticed that the last back up was three months earlier. The severity of this situation started to present itself. The very frantic Controller was explaining to me that all locations had invoices to mail out and payable checks needed for the vendors…payroll checks need to be printed etc.

Needles to say I did not leave that client site for weeks. The client did not have a back up not even a SQL disk back up. The Controller was taking out a tape every night and taking them home thinking he had a real disaster recovery strategy. However the Controller was not aware that the Tape Back Up software has stopped working three months earlier when a admin password was changed everywhere but in the Tape Back Up software.

All of the “pain” the company experienced was a traumatic as any experience. The company… a thriving company lost a tremendous amount of money due to the complete loss of there financial system for several weeks. The Controller about a week into the ordeal was taken away in an Ambulance due to stress related issues. The 60 million dollar company was at a virtual stand still….there operations were trying to move forward however with out detailed invoices receivables were not being paid. Vendors were not sending material for jobs and contract workers were walking off projects.

Myself and team literally worked around the clock for several weeks and were able to rebuild the data in Microsoft SQL server. We were able to get their custom reports and FRX back up. Out of all of the locations we were not able to get all of the data back for the Las Vegas location. They lost 3 months for Las Vegas and considering they almost lost all data they were very thankful.

The time we billed to get this company back up and running was monumental. I did not want to give an exact dollar amount however it surpassed 100K. This was the toughest working condition and not the type of billable hours that I enjoy. I was quite certain and told by the company ownership that if we were unable to get the data back and the system running the company would have gone out of business.

The problem was caused by the internal networking resource that was not professionally trained and did not understand how to properly manage a Microsoft Great Plains environment he was never seen again and did not return calls or pick up his last pay check.

I could and will later write about the other disaster I have restored for customer and have seem companies of all sizes not have a disaster recovery strategy either were non existent or did not operate.

Companies do not understand the severity of losing financial data. So over the years we have developed an automatic offsite system back up. We specialize in Microsoft Great Plains and can design and implement a real disaster recovery plan for companies of all sizes that are extremely affordable. Our system is set up by a Microsoft Great Plains expert that knows all of the essential components needed for a complete system recovery. Then nightly automatically we compress and securely encrypt your data and push it to our datacenter. We can store as many days as you would like and recommend holding 30 days of changes. This ensures your companies the ability to “roll back” to a point in time that you system was operational. We call this service SafeData and you can find more information at http://www.evisionsys.com/backup/ . Take your Disaster Recovery plan seriously and let professional handle it.