FEATURE: DISASTER RECOVERY
T
o cope with these demands,
many companies today are
building modern data centres
and investing in server virtualisation,
modern storage applications and
cloud-based services, in pursuit of
higher speeds, more efficient use of
existing resources and possible cost
savings.
While this is definitely a step in the
right direction, the irony is that many
areas of the data centre still rely on
legacy infrastructure and technologies
which inhibit the network from
functioning at optimal levels and
leads to data loss, longer recovery
times, unreliable data protection, a
lack of transparency and the inability
to analyze IT traffic. According to the
Veeam Data Center Availability Report
2014, companies risk losing between
$ 4.4 million and $ 7.9 million in lost
data and applications failures each
year; downtime can cost between $
1.4 million and $ 2.3 billion a year in
lost revenue, reduced productivity and
lost opportunities; the total annual
cost of downtime and data loss can
reach more than $10 million a year.
In addition to these financial losses,
there is the risk of damage to an
organisation’s reputation; something
that is very difficult to measure in
pure financial terms but can cripple an
organisation, setting it back years and
putting it at a decided disadvantage
vis-a-vis the competition.
There is clearly an availability
gap between the requirements of
an Always-On infrastructure, and
IT’s ability to effectively deliver
availability. In fact, 82% of CIOs
say there is a gap between the level
of availability they provide and
what end users demand. One of
the keys to bridging this availability
gap is modernising the data centre,
paying special attention to Business
Continuity/Disaster Recovery planning
(BC/DR) — how to carry on operating
even after a disaster. Unfortunately
this is an area that is often overlooked
in large part because there is the
misconception that it can be very
expensive, according to the 2014
report on ‘The State of Global
Disaster Recovery Preparedness’
published by the Disaster Recover
Preparedness Council, three out of
four organisations are at risk of failing
to recover from a disaster.
Evaluate data protection needs
The first step in implementing a
successful BC/DR plan is evaluation
– organisations need to conduct
a thorough risk assessment of the
entire IT infrastructure and all
services that support business critical
applications. The next step is to
define the Recovery Time Objectives
(RTOs) and Recovery Point Objectives
(RPOs) for the various business
critical applications. For businesses
to be considered ‘Always-On’, it
is recommended that they target
recovery time and point objectives
(RTPOs) of less than 15 minutes for all
applications and data.
A good business continuity plan
should include a ‘runbook’ or script
that sets out exactly what needs to
be done, by whom and in what order.
For example, an Exchange server
won’t connect unless Active Directory
is running, so the organization knows
that it will need Active Directory
before it can get email back. Once
the runbook is set up, much of the
process can be automated so that key
staff don’t have to make important
decisions in the heat and pressure
THE FIRST STEP IN IMPLEMENTING A SUCCESSFUL BC/
DR PLAN IS EVALUATION – ORGANISATIONS NEED TO
CONDUCT A THOROUGH RISK ASSESSMENT OF THE ENTIRE
IT INFRASTRUCTURE AND ALL SERVICES THAT SUPPORT
BUSINESS CRITICAL APPLICATIONS
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