A disaster recovery plan is an essential part of any business continuity strategy. It helps organizations maintain critical operations during unexpected disruptions. According to Queue.it, a one-hour outage can cost corporations an estimated $34 million in sales. While every business relies on data, downtime for the average business can cost $9,000 per minute or more, depending on the industry. In fact, Queue.it also reports that the percentage of single incidents costing over $100,000 has increased from 39 per cent in 2019 to 70 per cent in 2023.  

Disruptions can result from many factors, including power failure, networking equipment and server malfunction, or cyberattacks. These incidents highlight how vulnerable even advanced systems can be without a proper plan and preventive measures in place. Beyond lost revenue, prolonged downtime can damage an organization’s reputation, erode customer trust, and strain long-term relationships. 

Colocation Strengthens Disaster recovery  

In a data-driven economy, preventing disruptions and ensuring rapid recovery during crises are vital to reducing financial losses and safeguarding customer trust. Despite these risks, many organizations still rely on fragile in-house IT infrastructure for disaster recovery, leaving them exposed to costly outages and reputational harm.  

Colocating enhances organizational resilience and safeguards business continuity, especially when compared to relying solely on in-house IT infrastructure for disaster recovery. Telehouse Canada integrates disaster recovery planning into its operations to ensure business continuity and support customers in maintaining uptime during disruptions. Working with a colocation partner ensures that systems are supported in a secure, professionally managed environment. This reduces the burden on internal IT teams and improves response times during recovery. Colocation facilities also provide the scalability and connectivity needed to maintain operations during peak demand or unexpected interruptions. 

Key Benefits of a Colocated Disaster Recovery Strategy  

Cost-effectiveness: Partnering with a colocation provider eliminates the high costs and complexity of building an internal disaster recovery site.  

Resilience: Colocation environments are designed for uptime, offering controlled conditions, data centre redundancy, redundant power, and round-the-clock monitoring.  

Scalability: The ability to adjust capacity and resources as needs evolve gives businesses greater flexibility without sacrificing reliability.  

Expert support: With infrastructure managed by experts, organizations can maintain business continuity and focus on their customers and core objectives. 

How Carrier Hotel Data Centres Enhance Disaster recovery  

A business’ disaster recovery site must be secure and redundant. Telehouse Canada’s data centres are engineered with robust redundancy measures, delivering uninterrupted business continuity. 

Data centre geo-diversity 

Telehouse Canada’s three interconnected data centres across downtown Toronto provide geo-diverse disaster recovery sites that reduce the risk of localized failure. The dark fibre interconnection of our facilities is designed to handle the high network loads expected by high connectivity tenants while ensuring full redundancy. By distributing infrastructure across multiple locations, data can be processed closer to users, lowering latency and improving failover reliability. This multi-site approach allows seamless transition of workloads between facilities, ensuring service continuity in the event of regional disruptions.  

2N power redundancy and diverse routing  

Downtime from an outage can lead to a massive economic loss for large companies, highlighting the importance of data centre redundancy and high-availability infrastructure in maintaining business continuity. According to the U.S. Information Technology Intelligence Consulting, in 2024, one hour of downtime cost more than $300,000 for 90 per cent of businesses and between one to five million for 41 per cent of enterprises. This reinforces the value of designing infrastructure that can withstand unexpected failures. Redundancy ensures that when one component is offline, another can immediately take over. It is a defining feature of a resilient environment. Telehouse Canada sites include multiple backup generators, providing consistent performance and power supply even during extended utility outages. Our sites operate with a 2N Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) System and 2 diverse power feeds into facilities, allowing facilities to maintain full power during maintenance or equipment replacement. By maintaining two separate UPS systems, diverse power routing, and redundant fibre paths, Telehouse Canada minimizes single points of failure and strengthens data centre uptime reliability, ensuring continuous uptime for mission-critical systems.    

Data backups 

Routine backups safeguard data and applications from corruption, loss, or failure. They form the foundation of a dependable disaster recovery strategy. Automated systems reduce the risk of oversight while maintaining consistent copies of critical information. Off-site and geographically distributed storage options add another layer of protection, helping organizations remain operational during regional outages. At Telehouse Canada, backup environments are supported through geo-diverse colocation sites connected by dark fibre, enabling rapid data replication and restoration. 

Network segmentation and dark fibre interconnection 

Dividing network infrastructure into smaller segments limits exposure in the event of a breach. If one segment is compromised, the rest of the network remains unaffected. Segmentation improves both performance and security by restricting access to sensitive areas and simplifying incident response. Telehouse Canada’s high-capacity dark fibre interconnection links its three sites, implementing real-time replication and seamless failover between facilities. 

Compliance 

Telehouse Canada complies with the internationally recognized data centre certifications and compliance standards such as the GDPR, PIPEDA, SOC 2 Type II, PCI DSS, ISO/IEC 27001:2022, and CCPA, ensuring that client systems are protected by rigorous safeguards. Continuous 24/7/365 on-site security personnel and CCTV surveillance provide physical protection of facilities and customer equipment, while regular audits and monitoring detect vulnerabilities before they can be exploited. 

Peering 

Peering provides one-to-one connections between networks, enabling the direct exchange of traffic. Through network peering, traffic does not have to go through third-party IP transit providers reducing costs and increasing efficiency. Peering with leading Internet Service Providers (ISPs) at Telehouse Canada’s carrier-neutral data centre campus provides customers with low-latency network performance and rapid traffic rerouting in the event of disruptions. 

2N cooling configuration 

To ensure equipment stays safe and secure, it’s imperative to integrate proper data centre cooling systems. Cooling systems work by removing the excess heat and replacing it with cooler air. Our facilities at 151 Front St. W and 250 Front St. W in Toronto leverage Enwave’s Deep Lake Water Cooling System (DLWC), an innovative technology that uses the cold temperatures of Lake Ontario to cool our data centres. By leveraging the naturally cold temperatures of Lake Ontario instead of running a traditional mechanical cooling plant, the DLWC minimizes overall power consumption and improves efficiency and reliability. Telehouse Canada also integrates a 2N cooling configuration to align with industry best practices. This ensures that there is always additional cooling capacity available, even during maintenance or system upgrades, and if any interruption occurs to the DLWC system, a fully redundant mechanical plant seamlessly carries the full cooling load. 

Take a Proactive Approach 

Effective disaster recovery planning depends on preparation, testing, and continuous improvement. Organizations that take a proactive approach recover faster and with fewer losses. Partnering with a colocation provider such as Telehouse Canada ensures that critical infrastructure, data, and connectivity are supported by built-in redundancy and professional oversight. Investing in a comprehensive recovery strategy protects long-term business performance, customer trust, and organizational resilience.  

Telehouse Canada’s data centres provide secure, scalable environments designed to ensure business continuity and resilience. Contact us to learn how we can strengthen your continuity plan and disaster recovery strategy.