Network Disaster Recovery (part 2)

Network Disaster Recovery

Part 2 - Disaster Recovery Techniques An Article by your Guide Bradley Mitchell

Disaster Recovery Techniques All good IT disaster recovery plans consider the three main components of operations:

data systems people From the technical perspective, most organizations rely on some form of redundancy to make possible the recovery of data and systems. Redundancy allows secondary data or system resources to be pressed into service on short notice should primary resources fail or otherwise become unavailable. Traditional backup strategies, for example, archive copies of critical data at a given point in time so that they can be restored later if needed. Organizations may also choose to replicate servers and other critical hardware at multiple locations to guard against any single point of failure. More advanced network technologies, like SONET, and some forms of clustering, incorporate built-in failover capabilities that attempt to automatically recover from some failures. While these and similar approaches have been a part of IT practice for many years, more sophisticated disaster recovery techniques have grown in popularity due to the events of 11 September 2001. Periodic data backups, for example, have limited value if the "snapshots" are not taken frequently enough. Some organizations now generate so much data that even daily backups are too infrequent. A more sophisticated approach like disk mirroring ensures that data remain available from multiple sources in near real-time. However, traditional mirroring only works over limited distances. Storage area network (SAN) and other competing technologies can alleviate this problem, albeit at a higher cost. Another recent trend in IT disaster recovery planning, third-party relocation services, gives organizations access to fully-equipped operations space at temporary facilities in remote locations. These facilities can be a wonderful option in times of crisis... if trained personnel are available to staff them. Conclusion Overall, the events of 11 September 2001 have reminded us of the prime concerns with IT disaster prevention, planning, and recovery today: cost - comprehensive disaster recovery is extremely expensive testability - disaster recovery plans that look great on paper but are technically unproven will likely fail in practice overemphasis on the backoffice - without the people and the client-side infrastructure available, business still can't be done The recent resurgence in focus on business continuity needs to be balanced against the practical considerations of the costs and non-business priorities involved.

Network Disaster Recovery (part 1)

Network Disaster Recovery

Part 1 - Overview An Article by your Guide Bradley Mitchell

IT professionals have recognized the importance of disaster recovery for decades. Both the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 and recent IT technology trends have led to more widespread awareness of disaster recovery and other business continuity issues. Organizations face some tough choices, though, in planning for the future.

What Is Disaster Recovery? In IT, disaster recovery involves a series of actions to be taken in the event of major unplanned outages to minimize their adverse effects. Disasters can result from events such as hacker attacks computer viruses electric power failures underground cable cuts or failures fire, flood, earthquake, and other natural disasters at a facility mistakes in system administration The related concept of business continuity involves insuring that an organization's critical business processes, including those utilizing IT systems, can be maintained in the event of a disaster. Why Is Disaster Recovery Important? When executed well, disaster recovery procedures save large sums of money. Disaster recovery can also improve the quality of human life, and it may even save lives. The terrorist attacks of 11 September, for example, caused large-scale network outages. Among the affected systems were some of the fiber optic telecommunications services provided by Verizon. Besides the financial impact to Wall Street firms from lost data connectivity, the loss of voice contact with friends and family greatly affected many individuals on that day. Disaster Recovery Planning The best approach to disaster recovery focuses primarily on planning and prevention. While the damage resulting from the events of 11 September could not have been anticipated, many other more typical disaster scenarios can be analyzed in detail. For those events that can't be prevented, an IT disaster recovery plan takes into account the need to detect the outages or other disaster effects as quickly as possible notify any affected parties so that they can take action isolate the affected systems so that damage cannot spread repair the critical affected systems so that operations can be resumed