Automated Backup & Restoration Subsystems
What is the price of downtime? The answer to this question would require a significant dissertation. Estimates for downtime are a function of size, system, and organization function. They can range from $500 per hour to even $100,000 per minute for large real-time transaction systems. Your real cost will be hard to quantify as factors such as idle time of salaried staff, third party cost of complex data restoration, customer frustration, and loss of business all need to be factored into the equation.
Many business critical systems are transaction based systems in which there is a constant data retrieval and data writing cycle. Data can be lost due to a variety of reasons. Power outages during a write operation, drive and media failures, viruses, computer room fires, malicious employees - all can cause your valuable data to become permanently lost.
Fortunately today there are numerous options for backup. These range from simple disk mirroring, Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID), redundant off site storage subsystems, CD-ROM, manual tape, online backup, automated tape libraries, and so forth.
A well thought out and engineered backup plan must also take into account aspects of Availability, Security and the organization’s Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery (BCP/DR) plans. Backup should be approached from a multi-tiered perspective. A tape backup system is fine, but it is usually run daily. What happens to the data you stored since the last backup? Can you live with up to 24 hours of lost data? For some organizations (example a medical practice), that would be a disaster. Many organizations use a RAID system to ensure data integrity during the intervals between tape backups. While this approach is satisfactory to certain organizations, what happens if a fire strikes your computer room or a hacker or virus attacks and corrupts your raid array? Again, can you live with up to a 24 loss of data?
At L4 Networks, our IT consultants will examine your current backup subsystems, backup policies and procedures, your needs, goals, security and cost constraints. We often recommend that the backup plan rationalized with respect your BCP/DR Plan. We will then develop comprehensive set of alternatives, system specifications and recommendations that support these objectives.
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