Victorian council prepares for bushfire disaster

Yarra Ranges Council in Victoria has partnered with disaster recovery provider Global Storage to protect the council's IT systems and data in the event of a disaster.

"The destruction caused by the devastating Black Saturday Bushfires is a reminder of our vulnerability to a disaster occurring, so we need to be very well prepared and minimise our risk in all areas," Craig Whalley, manager of information services at the council said in a statement.

"We have moved to a very heavy reliance on IT systems, so it is imperative that we have a disaster recovery strategy that enables us to access our data and systems.

"If we can minimise downtime we can avoid the disruption and inconvenience caused by having to rely on manual systems."

Yarra Ranges expected to have the backup service fully implemented by the end of the year with the disaster recovery service up and running by February next year.