The doors to a $1 million Hamilton facility which nobody wants to use opened this week.

Business continuity firm Plan-b opened its first business recovery centre outside of Auckland, in Ward St, on Tuesday.

The unmanned centre, equipped with 60 work stations, is intended to become a centre of operations for Plan-b clients who find themselves unable to operate from their own premises following a fire, flood, or other catastrophic event.

Director Ian Tuke said the facility could cater for three businesses simultaneously, with separate facilities for businesses needing 30, 20 or 10 terminals.

There are also several board and meeting rooms in the facility.

The company already had half a dozen Waikato businesses on its books, which pay a monthly premium as a form of insurance, but was in talks with about 40 others.

Data is backed up as frequently as the client requires and stored in Plan-b's vaults, and can be installed on its server within minutes of any client's systems failure.

Each terminal, which can access backed-up client data installed on Plan-b's Auckland server, uses thin client technology instead of standard computer towers.

Plan-b technical director Symon Thurlow said instead of using one multiple-licence copy of Microsoft Windows XP or Vista, Plan-b clients would be able to access one of 96 copies of the operating system installed on the server which meant each one could be restarted without affecting other users.

Mr Tuke said Plan-b had 460 clients nationally, from multinationals down, and there were plans to open similar business recovery centres in Wellington and Christchurch next year.