Disaster Recovery for Data Centers

Surveys show that reporting of disasters by top companies are on the decline. The figure has fallen to around 14% in terms of the number of companies reporting at least one instance of initiating recovery mechanism in the last one year.

Is this because of the rising importance of Disaster Recovery in today’s enterprise due to increased reliance on data? Is it fear that is causing businesses to incorporate DR strategies into their business process? Whatever the reason, companies need to plan for disaster recovery for their data. Some tips include:

• Assessing the risks to various business spheres in the event of a crash of the data center, including detailed accounting of processes and wings that would be affected directly or indirectly as a result of such a catastrophe
• Keeping the workforce ready and prepared all the time to prevent serious consequences in the event of a mishap, including intensive training sessions on effective backup and retrieval mechanisms.
• Understanding how the cloud can help. Depending on the business, the cloud may or may not be the ideal environment for back up, but it is important to keep that as on option.
• Conducting periodic drills to analyse and estimate the efficiency of the Disaster Recovery mechanism to increase awareness among Data Centre Employees, and help them attend to an issue once it props up. This will also reduce the scope for human errors during an emergency

There is a need to ensure that outages of Data Centres due to power or network disruptions do not occur. A well planned and thought out DR strategy can create a sense of security for enterprises today.

Alex Carroll

Managing Member at Lifeline Data Centers

Alex, co-owner, is responsible for all real estate, construction and mission critical facilities: hardened buildings, power systems, cooling systems, fire suppression, and environmentals. Alex also manages relationships with the telecommunications providers and has an extensive background in IT infrastructure support, database administration and software design and development. Alex architected Lifeline’s proprietary GRCA system and is hands-on every day in the data center.