Time is money, as they say, and it is also a key factor in IT disaster recovery. Take, for instance, the well-known recovery time objective or RTO, which defines how fast you should get back to normal operations after an IT incident. Read more
Disaster recovery has a cost, whether you measure it in money, time, or effort. It’s a cost that starts in the planning stage, before any disaster happens (hopefully), but it’s also supposed to be an investment or an insurance, in case something goes dramatically wrong. Read more
Big data is all around us and getting bigger by the minute. As enterprises and organizations, we produce big data ourselves through internal system logs, online sales sites, and “digital exhaust” of different kinds, although our individual output is only a drop in the ocean compared to all the big data out there. Read more
Test, test, test. Any disaster recovery plan worth its salt must be tested, and any shortcomings revealed by the test must be rectified. That’s how we make DR plans that are robust, relevant, and effective – as long as the configurations of IT systems remain reasonably stable. However, configuration drift is a fact of IT life. Read more
There are four ways of handling a risk, such as the failure of one of your IT systems. The first is to accept it, for example, if it is a non-critical system that you can fix next week. The second is to eliminate it, using mirrored systems and storage in a hot standby scenario. Read more
Sometimes we get so busy trying to do things right that we get blindsided to some of the things we might be doing wrong. Doing things right can be considered as necessary, but not sufficient. Not doing things wrong (you’ll have to excuse a double negative here!) is the other half of the equation, only to be neglected at your peril. What can go wrong? Read more
MTPD, just to remind you, stands for Maximum Tolerable Period of Disruption. It’s a metric that gets less publicity than RTO (recovery time objective) and RPO (recovery time objective) and there is a reason, if not an excuse, for that. Definitions for MTPD usually sound simple: for example, “The maximum time an activity or resource can be unavailable before irreparable harm is caused to the organization.” The more complicated part is in the measurement of MTPD. Gauging irreversible damage in terms of job security of employees, legal liabilities, reputation and/or shareholder value is as much an art as a science. Furthermore, that simple definition may also be hiding more than meets the eye. Read more
For IT managers responsible for recovery after an IT incident, DR is often anything but a game. After all, with so many businesses critically dependent on their IT, any attempt to make RTO and RPO “fun” might seem seriously out of place. Yet gamification might be a smart move for organisations in which IT is being devolved to individual business units and employees. When users start to store business data on their personal mobile computing devices, they don’t always respond to stern injunctions to perform backups. On the other hand, making DR routines amusing or giving them a sense of achievement could appeal. Read more
Service level agreements are a common feature of enterprise IT. They include guarantees of specified levels of availability and uptime, application response time, end-user support and problem resolution, and – of course – those DR staples of RTO and RPO. However, these SLAs are often a disconnected collection of promises. You could even call them “islands of commitment”, like people talk about “islands of automation” and other items in the IT world that have not been linked together for added business value. That’s a shame, because when used correctly, SLAs for IT in general and for disaster recovery in particular can provide value directly back to the business as a whole. Read more
Would it surprise you to know that enterprises often spend around 25% of their information technology budget on disaster recovery solutions? With all that’s at stake including the survival in the market, companies can’t afford to get it wrong. While IT teams and internal auditors may be working on DR procedures and compliance, disaster recovery managers need to see the overall picture and identify any gaps or shortfalls that must addressed. The DR planning documents that list disaster recovery risks, impacts and objectives are the starting point. But while a plan is necessary, it’s not sufficient: execution and checking are vital components as well. Read more