Disaster recovery plan

knowledge pack

By Mike Talon
Make the disaster recovery case to management
In many organizations, upper management isn't necessarily technically savvy, and the powers-that-be
who control your budget and headcount may not have a lot of IT knowledge under their belts. This can
lead to situations in which upper management rules out the technological solution that the organization
really needs.
Unfortunately, this is not uncommon, and IT pros often have little control over the situation. The decisions
that come down from above may not be uncontestable, but it can definitely be difficult to get them
reversed.

Let's look at how you can best present your DR solution to management, and let's discuss how you can
best protect yourself--and the company's data--if management chooses a different path.

First, make sure management is aware of why the proposed solution is necessary for proper disaster
recovery planning. Gather data on the various parts of the solution, and translate this information into
non-technical terminology as best you can.

Consider performing your own cost-benefit analysis, instead of relying on the accounting staff to do it. And
brush up on any regulations concerning data recovery for your type of business, which can add even
more weight to your case.

After you've gathered all of this information, present it to management, and ask what additional
information they need to make their decision. Of course, you hope this information will be sufficient to
convince management that the company needs to implement the solution.

But don't assume that you're in the clear. Budget restrictions or corporate politics may cause management
to reject your proposed solution in part or in its entirety.

If this occurs, you have a couple options. You can go above the superior's head, but keep in mind that this
course of action could have serious repercussions for your career.

A safer option is to go forward with the solution that management has deemed acceptable. But you should
prepare to shield yourself from the fallout if this solution ultimately fails.

To effectively prepare for the backlash of a failed solution you didn't recommend, first maintain all the
documentation you gathered for your original presentation. Make sure you can pull it up when the
emergency is over, so you can prove you suggested a different course of action.

In any case, if management decides against the solution you think the organization really needs, you
must do the best you can with what's available. Prepare as much as you can to recover from the disaster
with the solutions you have at hand, and prepare to answer to management if these solutions fail to
provide the level of recovery you know the company needs.

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Develop a solid disaster recovery strategy for a small
business
Large businesses aren't the only organizations that need disaster recovery plans; small businesses must
also prepare for any number of catastrophes. For small companies, large-scale disaster recovery tools
may not be fiscally feasible, but they may also not be very necessary.
While small businesses do indeed need DR systems in place, they generally don't need to protect
systems at the same level as large organizations. This isn't because the data isn't as important--there
probably just isn't as much data as you would find in large companies. Real-time replication and other
higher-end technology is definitely an option, but it's usually not mandatory.

Tape is always a good starting place for small firms. You can purchase many tape systems for a
reasonable price, and they can back up your entire infrastructure at once in many cases.

While some small organizations may need to find a slightly larger tape system, the basic systems will
work just fine in the majority of cases. This typically entails a daily copy of all changed data and a weekly
full copy of all data.

After making the tapes, be sure to remove the copies from the office, leaving only the most recent tapes
in the facility. If there's a flood, fire, or some other physical mishap that destroys the on-site tapes, you'll
still have backup copies.

Small organizations that have more than one office can find many host-based replication systems that
don't require higher-end disk arrays to transmit data. These tools use the operating system on the
individual servers to send copies of data between locations.

While this solution requires a server at both sites, it typically doesn't require much else. Of course, you
don't want to eliminate tape from your environment, so use this solution in addition to using a tape backup
system.

Host-based replication systems cost more than tape backup alone. However, if you have data that you
must protect in real-time or near-real-time, this is a cost-effective method of gaining the protection your
organization needs.

In addition, remember that a lot of data in small companies resides on laptops and desktops. Therefore,
you must take steps to prevent data loss at this level.

Beginning with Windows 2000, you can use offline folders to keep the My Documents folder automatically
updated both on the local machine and on a file server. For other operating systems, you can find tools or
use corporate mandates to ensure that users back up or otherwise protect important data.

Recent advances in technology offer even more options that can help protect small businesses against
data loss. For example, the new Windows Storage Server 2003 provides the ability to take point-in-time
snapshots called volume shadow copies. Other network-attached storage (NAS) devices offer similar
capabilities--if your budget allows for their purchase.

No matter how you protect your data, there's no reason to ignore DR just because you work for a small
business. With the right combination of technology and insight, even small firms can provide their end
users with high-end DR plans.

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Create a budget-friendly DR plan
Let's be honest: Disaster recovery planning is expensive. While planning for contingencies that can
involve the total loss of major pieces of hardware is never a cheap process, it doesn't have to break the
bank.
Many DR plans never receive funding because they try to do too much, which is good for the technology
but terrible for the bottom line. When developing a DR plan, you need to carefully balance the protection
that's absolutely necessary with processes that don't require the more expensive methods of protection.

First, consider the data you want to protect. Is it highly dynamic, or does it remain mostly the same each
day with only a few changes? The closer you get to real-time data protection, the more expensive the
technologies you need to implement become.

Since each time you get a level of protection closer to real-time can mean thousands or even hundreds of
thousands of dollars more, you must be very sure of what you need before you set a budget.

Take steps to protect data that changes rapidly and throughout the day--and that has a high monetary
value assigned to it--as close to real-time as your organization can afford. For data that doesn't change
very much, you can most likely protect it just fine with a daily or twice-a-day tape backup or other point-in-
time technologies.

And while we're on the subject of data, consider the possibility that you're protecting data that isn't vital to
the organization. For example, employees often innocently store personal files such as digital music
downloads on company file servers.

These take up room on the servers in your production environment, but since the price of disk space has
fallen in recent times, the company may not mind. However, if you protect this data along with the rest of
your corporate data, you may end up paying a large overhead in both hardware and software--not to
mention removable media such as tapes.

Eliminating this data with a rules or wildcard-based exclusion system (available in many types of DR
products) can ensure that you don't protect data that isn't vital to your company. Doing so can reduce the
amount of funding you need, and it can limit the inevitable headaches of trying to bring systems back
online that aren't really vital to the bottom line.

In addition, location can mean everything in DR planning. Transmitting data and/or transporting
removable media can quickly become the most expensive part of any DR plan, with recurring costs
spiraling out of control on a monthly basis.

In the majority of cases, moving tapes and data across town is much less expensive than moving it
across the country or internationally. You need to balance the distance between sites with the amount of
funds you have available to move the information and media.

Using the right mix of technologies, protecting only vital data, and creating the best combination of
distance vs. cost can help keep your DR budget reasonable. While the worst plan is to not plan for a
disaster at all, the second worst is to create an adequate, effective DR plan that never sees the light of
day because it fails to get budget approval.

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Develop a DR plan that's more than an insurance policy
I've discussed how to get the budget you need to put a successful disaster recovery plan into place.
Keeping with this theme, now I want to focus on one of the most common reasons for not getting budget
approval.
Specifically, I'm talking about the idea that the DR system will be nothing more than an expensive
insurance policy that the organization hopes never to use. Overcoming this objection can require some in-
depth explanations on your part to the powers-that-be. To help strengthen your case, you should also
consider creating a DR plan that acts as more than just insurance.

The explanations are pretty straight-forward. In addition to discussing exactly how much money the
company could lose to a serious outage, you can also point out that lower recovery costs will offset the
expenses of the DR system--and a DR system can even lower operational costs due to avoiding fines
from regulatory agencies.

But sometimes actions speak louder than words. Consider designing your proposed DR solution to serve
other purposes in addition to protecting the data systems. While there are several ways to do this, the two
most common are centralized or enhanced backup systems and multitasking the DR servers.

Enhanced backup is the idea of using a replication system to transport data to another physical device,
using either software-based tools or SAN-based hardware replication systems. In either case, you can
typically back up the replicated data systems from the replicated copy--freeing up the production systems.

This means you don't have to worry about the production systems taking a processor and/or memory hit
when backup agents are running. In addition, you can reduce the number of required backup agents, and
you can reduce the number of open file issues you'd normally see with standard backup technologies.

All this translates into more manageable backups and no more "backup windows." Using an enhanced
backup system, you can back up data in the middle of the production day without impacting end-user
performance or requiring all files to be in a closed state.

A centralized backup system extends this concept to branch-office operations. The system replicates data
to a central or set of regional offices, where you can back it up and protect it for your DR purposes.
Because branch offices often don't have dedicated technical staff, this offers the added benefit of
performing backup operations where the knowledgeable staffers are.

Multitasking the backup servers involves using the DR data systems to perform other operations while still
being ready to stand in for a failed primary data system. For example, two file servers can easily replicate
or otherwise copy data to each other. Under normal circumstances, these servers act as single file
resources. But during a disaster, either one can stand in for its counterpart--while continuing to serve its
original population.

Keep in mind that you'll experience a performance hit after a failover when using this solution. But if this
hit is acceptable, multitasking the backup server is a valid methodology for getting more than just
insurance out of your DR plan.

However you decide to make the most out of your DR system, planning to do so before asking for budget
approval can often make the process go much more smoothly. Demonstrating that your proposed DR
plan offers value beyond insurance can help you overcome budget hurdles--and get the company more
"bang for its buck" overall.

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Benefit from free resources when creating a DR plan
This article focuses on one of the most overlooked aspects of DR planning.
Many times, an IT pro takes one look at the enormous task of forming a DR plan, throws up his or her
hands, and throws in the towel. The issue isn't that DR planning is too much for one person--it absolutely
is; that's a given. However, an IT pro has so many places to turn for advice and assistance that he or she
often overlooks many resources that can make the task easier to manage.

Of course, I would be severely remiss not to mention your most obvious resource: TechRepublic.com as
well as CNET Networks' other properties, including News.com, Downloads, com, and more. Take
advantage of this focused source of information for more help on security, networking, and many other
topics, all of which play a role in DR planning.

Perhaps even more important, however, is the community of IT pros who visit and participate on these
sites. This group is a great resource you can turn to for advice about planning and implementations that
members have already performed. Tap into their experiences, and benefit from their lessons learned.

The Internet also offers a number of opportunities for networking with other IT pros to find answers to your
questions. User groups, bulletin boards, and online forums provide effective resources for finding out
more information about software and hardware recovery and protection solutions.

In addition, regulatory agencies--both government- and industry-based--offer many resources you can
leverage when beginning the process as well as throughout your DR planning. Because these agencies
often impose stiff penalties for failure to comply with regulations, they tend to offer advice and referrals for
organizations that must meet these regulations. You can often find referrals to specialists and user
groups, as well as a wealth of documentation that offers insight into many different aspects of DR
planning.

Last but definitely not least, don't forget about your vendors. They can often assist you in creating a
complete DR plan.

Most software and hardware vendors (both of DR solutions and in general) can offer advice for using their
particular products to create a DR strategy. Many will work directly with other vendors to create a
combined strategy that takes into account multiple solutions.

Of course, as you would expect, vendors typically focus on their own products. For a well-rounded, less-
biased information pool, I recommend speaking to more than one vendor of each type of tool or solution.

DR planning can be an overwhelming task--especially if you don't have a large technical staff to help
gather information. But take heart in the fact that no IT pro is alone in the digital world. Leverage the many
objective sources of information when creating your organization's DR plan.

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Related TechRepublic resources

TechRepublic books and CDs:

Disaster Planning and Recovery Pack
Securing Your Enterprise: A Guide to Network Threat Management
Downloads:
Compare three disaster recovery solutions
Disaster Recovery Plan: Manager's update checklists
Disaster recovery checklist

Articles and columns:

Build human accountability into your disaster recovery plan
Lock IT Down: Immediate response in disaster recovery

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