Disaster Recovery and Fault Tolerance

Greetings from my office at the National headquarters for CSI Onsite.  Doesn’t that sound like I am on the top floor of a sky scrapper, in a corner office with windows opening to a panoramic view of a bustling cityscape?  Well that’s not the case; I am in a very pleasant cube, with a view of 2 nicely painted walls…however the office directly across from me is bustling with activity. My boss is a very active person.

Today we would like to give you an introductory look into one of the most important aspects of IT management, disaster recovery and fault tolerance (DR/FT). This is a very large area involving software, hardware, equipment, business models, etc… you get the picture. This blog will simply introduce the topic and some basic considerations for DR/FT.

First of all, let’s have a working definition of disaster recovery. Disaster recovery is a plan for duplicating computer operations after a catastrophe occurs, such as a fire, flood, theft or earthquake. Some companies that operated out of the World Trade Center twin towers in New York City had a disaster recovery plan in place before the attacks of 9/11/2011. Many companies that had programs in place were up and running within a few days in new locations. Companies that did not have disaster recovery systems had the most difficulty recreating their information infrastructure.

A very effective and simple definition for fault tolerance is a plan to minimize or eliminate downtime. In other words keeping your workstation, server, or network up and running, we simply call it (Uptime).

The solution that will best meet the DR/FT needs of an organization or individual can vary quite a bit from situation to situation. And any numbers of factors have to be taken into consideration before a truly robust solution is put in place.

One recommendation I want to make up front is this, if you are exploring disaster recovery and fault tolerance solutions please use quality IT professionals to guide you through the process. If you don’t know of any, let me know…I got a guy who can set you up (say this with a Tony Soprano accent). Seriously your data in particular is gold to both businesses and individuals. Don’t take chances on non specialized, untested solutions recommended by a retail store sales person, talk with a professional who does this for a living.

You wouldn’t believe me if I told you how many phone calls I have received from panic stricken people, business owners and individuals alike, who can’t get their system running or have lost all of their important data due to a catastrophe.  It is a very disheartening experience to find out they have no plan in place to recover from these losses. Even sadder is that fact that many of these people wanted to save some money and depended on a friend or a friend of a friend who was “pretty good with computers” to set up their disaster recovery and fault tolerance. They learned the hard way the importance of finding the best disaster recovery and fault tolerance solution through a qualified, well trained, and trustworthy professional.

Please check back in with our next blog as we further explore disaster recovery and fault tolerance.

Have a fantastic day!