A hardware failure on Computer Marketing Plc’s central IBM 4341 Model 2 processor on the night of December 20 led the company to invoke its one-year-old contract with Thorn-EMI Datasolve’s disaster recovery arm, Datashield. The decision to de-camp to Datashield’s hot site facility in Hayes was taken at 11pm – in the middle of Thorn’s Christmas party, and at a crucial point in Computer Marketing’s end-of-year trading activities. According to Computer Marketing’s DP manager Phil Coleman, however, the system was fully recovered by 5am, with the communications and software necessary to restore on-line contact with four branches in place by 7.45 am. The – unspecified – fault was rectified over the course of the next two days by an unidentfied third party, and the company was reinstated at its Camberley head office by December 23. Contingency plans had been fully tested by both parties on two separate occasions – a step described by Coleman as vital to the operation’s success.
