Disaster Recovery: Peace of Mind and Competitive Edge

August 1, 2010

Whether they strike in the form of power losses, cooling failures, datacenter floods, or earthquakes, disasters happen, and every business needs a proven strategy for how to return to operations as quickly as possible. A dependable disaster recovery plan saves businesses money and provides competitive advantage by limiting downtime.

Not all companies have identical IT resources, but disaster recovery should be a top priority of everyone's IT budget. DR processes should be unique to each company: it is crucial that individual business models be analyzed in order to determine the vital elements that need to be available immediately following a disaster. Once the proper components are identified, a plan can be designed which, at a minimum, ensures that the integral pieces of operation can quickly and easily be brought online after a disaster. Ideally, the plan should ensure that the entire network is both available 24x7x365 and also that it can weather any man-made or natural disaster.

Disaster recovery is not a one-time project with an end date; it is a live model which must be constantly monitored, maintained, and tested. Implementation of DR is only an asset if companies are confident the plan will work when a disaster strikes, so a successful disaster recovery strategy includes:

• Technology: Proven technology solutions from market leaders are necessary to provide replication, recovery, and availability.
• Monitoring: 24x7 monitoring is critical to ensure that the DR site is both available and ready. The monitoring solution should include synthetic transactions, 24x7x365 availability monitoring and continuous replication testing.
• Maintenance: Disaster recovery sites must be included in the comprehensive patching, virus protection, and backup methodologies which are in place for the production environment.
• Documentation: Thorough documentation and training is essential for both the IT staff and end users. Spending time in these areas will minimize panic and uncertainty when disaster strikes.
• Testing: Full scale tests must be repeatedly and meticulously completed to ensure that the underlying technology is working and that the IT staff and end users are able to successfully carry out their duties.

Disaster recovery may be daunting to consider, but businesses that hope to remain successful cannot neglect to take the appropriate steps to plan for disaster. Preparing DR strategies saves businesses money and provides valuable competitive edge.