Scribd
Upload
38 views

High-Availability Systems: Backup Procedures

High-availability systems aim to minimize downtime and ensure continuous operation. They typically aim for 99% or higher uptime, with some users demanding 99.99% availability. This would mean less than an hour of downtime per year. Telecommunications, emergency services, and financial systems rely on high-availability to deliver critical services. These systems employ features like hot-swapping and redundant components to automatically replace failed parts without interrupting operation.

Uploaded by

Cj Serna
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
38 views

High-Availability Systems: Backup Procedures

High-availability systems aim to minimize downtime and ensure continuous operation. They typically aim for 99% or higher uptime, with some users demanding 99.99% availability. This would mean less than an hour of downtime per year. Telecommunications, emergency services, and financial systems rely on high-availability to deliver critical services. These systems employ features like hot-swapping and redundant components to automatically replace failed parts without interrupting operation.

Uploaded by

Cj Serna
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 2

High-Availability Systems

A high-availability system continues running and performing tasks for at least 99 percent of the
time. Some users demand that high-availability systems be available for 99.99 percent of the time.
A system that has uptime of 99.99 percent is nonfunctional for less than one hour per year. That
one hour, called downtime, includes any time that the computer crashes, needs repairs, or requires
installation of replacement or upgrade parts. A system with 99.9 percent availability is said to have
three nines of availability, and a system with 99.99 percent availability is said to have four nines of
availability.
Telecommunications companies, such as local telephone companies, rely on high-availability
systems to deliver telephone service. Emergency 911 communications centers require almost
100 percent uptime for their hardware and software applications as mandated by law. Centralized
accounting or financial systems must be available to gather sales and other accounting information
from locations scattered around the globe.
High-availability systems often include a feature called hot-swapping. Hot-swapping allows
components, such as a RAID hard disk or power supplies, to be replaced while the rest of the 490
Chapter 12 Enterprise Computing
system continues to perform its tasks. A high-availability system also may include
redundant components. Redundant components, such as redundant power
supplies (Figure 12-25), allow for a functioning component to take over auto
matically the tasks of a similar component that fails. When a component fails, the
system administrator is notified, but the computer continues to perform its tasks
because a redundant component has taken its place automatically in the system.
Scalability
As an enterprise grows, its information systems either must grow with it or
must be replaced. Scalability is a measure of how well a computer hardware
system, software application, or information system can grow to meet increasing
performance demands. A system that is designed, built, or purchased when the
company is small may be inadequate when the company doubles in size. When
making decisions for computing solutions, managers must be careful to consider
the growth plans of the company.
A company may find that its Web site is becoming overwhelmed by customers
and prospective customers. If the Web site is scalable, then the Web administra
tor can add more Web servers to handle the additional visitors to the Web site.
Similarly, an enterprise’s storage needs usually grow daily, meaning that storage
systems should be scalable to store the ever-growing data generated by users.
Adding more hardware often is the easiest method to grow, or scale, an infor
mation system. Often, at some point, a system no longer scales and must be
replaced with a new system.
Interoperability
Enterprises typically build and buy a diverse set of information systems. An
information system often must share information, or have interoperability, with
other information systems within the enterprise. Information systems that more
easily share information with other information systems are said to be open.
Information systems that are more difficult to interoperate with other informa
tion systems are said to be closed, or proprietary. Recent open systems employ
XML and Web services to allow a greater level of interoperability.
Backup Procedures
Business and home users can perform four types of backup: full, differential, incremental, or
selective. A fifth type, continuous data protection, typically is used only by large enterprises. A
full backup, sometimes called an archival backup, copies all of the files in the computer. A full
backup provides the best protection against data loss because it copies all program and data files.
Performing a full backup can be time-consuming. A differential backup copies only the files that
have changed since the last full backup. An incremental backup copies only the files that have
changed since the last full or last incremental backup. A selective backup, sometimes called a
partial backup, allows the user to choose specific files to back up, regardless of whether or not
the files have changed since the last incremental backup. Continuous data protection (CDP), or
continuous backup, is a system in which all data is backed up whenever a change is made. A con
tinuous data protection plan keeps a journal of every transaction — reads, writes, and deletes —
made to a server or servers.
Whatever backup procedures a company adopts, they should be stated clearly, documented in
writing, and followed consistently.
Figure 12-25
This heavy duty battery
rack provides reliable
backup power for
enterprise hardware.
Enterprise Computing Chapter 12
491
Disaster Recovery Plan
A disaster recovery plan is a written plan describing the steps a company would take to
restore computer operations in the event of a disaster. A disaster recovery plan contains four major
components: the emergency plan, the backup plan, the recovery plan, and the test plan.
The Emergency Plan An emergency plan specifies the steps to be taken immediately after a
disaster strikes. All emergency plans should contain the following information:
1. Names and telephone numbers of people and organizations to notify (e.g., management, fire
department, police department)
2. Procedures to follow with the computer equipment (e.g., equipment shutdown, power shutoff,
file removal)
3. Employee evacuation procedures
4. Return procedures; that is, who can reenter the facility and what actions they

You might also like