Best Practices for Disaster Recovery Design and Implementation

1
Best Practices for Disaster Recovery Design and
Implementation

• Damian Walch
• Senior Vice President, Professional Services
• Comdisco, Inc.

2
What Well Cover

• Learning from the response to events of 09-11-01
• Addressing immediate actions to be taken NOW!
• Recovering the information flow
• Testing the strategies and plans
• Planning for an outage that can be catastrophic

3
Comdisco 528 Disasters Supported

• While companies think theyre immune to any
  long-term outage, more that one-fourth of
  companies have experienced a disruption in the
  last 5 years, averaging eight hours, or one
  business day.
• Source Comdisco
  Vulnerability index

4
Our Experience in the WTC Disaster

• 94 disasters declared related to the event
• 47 customers
• All platforms mainframe, distributed, network
  and workarea
• Communications were very difficult
• Companies didnt have backup staff for recovery
• Lack of rally points created more chaos and
  added time to recovery process
• Mobile trailers can be essential for recovery

5
At-Time-of-Disaster Solutions

• Speed Time to Deliver
• Good Teams Experience in Crisis
• Measured Progress Service Levels
• Networks Wireless
• Innovation Portal for Communication

6
Network of Vendors
Mobile Star 972.994.4900 www.mobilestar.com
CIT - Technology Rentals Services (Formerly
Newcourt Financial) 800.227.5069 www.citgroup.com
Data Recovery Group 888.462.3299 www.datarecoveryg
roup.com
GE Capital 800.243.222 www.gecapital.com
Aggreko 318.367.7884 www.aggreko.com
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Communications Portal
To do that, you must have a wealth of current
intelligence about your resourcesand what's
really happening in the field.
The efficient and rapid allocation of resources
is key to the quick restoration of critical
services and networks.
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Recovery Event Sequence
Restore Infrastructure
Restore Application
Restore Data to RPO
Lost Applications Data
Restore Network
Event
Offsite Vital Records
Resume Business
Interim Site
Return Home
Immediate Response
Synchronize
Lost OS Data
Relocate Business Function
Recreate Lost Data Transactions
Process Backlog
Backlogged Transactions

• Recovery Time Objective
• Time required to recover critical systems to a
  functional state, often assumed to be back to
  normal for those systems designated as mission
  critical.
• Recovery Point Objective
• Point in time to which the information has been
  restored when the RTO has elapsed and is
  dependent upon what is available from an offsite
  data storage location.

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What is required for recovery?

• Strategy Summary of below, documented.
• Data Applications identified, backed-up and
  taken offsite.
• People Knowledgeable staff that understands DR
  and critical images.
• Place Other locations identified with sufficient
  capacity and testable.
• Network Capacity, equipment and software to
  restore connectivity.
• Procedures Action-oriented recovery plans

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What to Include in Recovery Strategy?
PC orComputerInterface
RouterorISP Portal
RouterorISP Portal
End User
Data StorageServices
Network
LAN
Application / DatabaseServers
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How Do you Pick a Strategy?
Yesterday
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Considerations for Advanced Recovery Solutions
COST
LOCALPERFORMANCEIMPACT
FAULTRECOVERY

IO RATE
WIO RATE
Each Customer has unique requirements
RESYNCH IMPACT
BANDWIDTH
DISTANCE
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Corporate Recovery Organization
Crisis Management Business Recovery Teams Busine
ss Recovery Coordinator Critical Business
Functions Only Information Technology Finance
Office Infrastructure Support
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Looking for Alternative Site?

• How much space is available?
• When is the space available?
• How much outside parking?
• Does the parking lot have lights?
• How many entrances and are they secure?
• Is there security card access into the building?
• How many hours per year do the tenants experience
  electrical outages in this building?

• Is the security desk manned 24 x 7?
• Is the building connected to any of the SONET
  Fiber Ring?
• What network carriers are providing service in
  building?
• Are there telecom rooms on each floor, shared?
• Is there a generator in the building to provide
  power backup in the event of power failures? If
  so, is this available to tenants?

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How to Make Plans More Usable

• Dont get into analysis paralysis!!!
• Plans should be brief
• Nobody is going to use a plan that requires a
  binder
• They need to be action oriented
• You should be able to access or carry them
• Small enough to carry in a briefcase
• Utilize on a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA)
• Access via the internet
• Adaptable
• Just like programming, you cant hard code
  information
• Give them guidelines and resources to address the
  situation

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Conduct Realistic Testing

• Test at least once per year, but do it right!
• Require involvement from the staff that will
  actually do the recoveryMAKE THEM AVAILABLE
• Use backups sometimes, at least inform them
• Test the information flow
• Storage, databases and backend systems
• Infrastructure including network, security and
  middleware
• Include end-users, workstations and servers

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Resources for More Information
WEB SITES
BOOKS

• Windows NT Backup Recovery by John McMains
• Disaster Recovery Planning for Networks,
  Telecommunications and Data Communications by
  Regis J. Bates
• Oracle8i Backup Recoveryby Rama Velpuri
• Disaster Recovery Planning and Resources for
  Records Managers and Librarians by Jacqueline
  Virando
• Blueprints for High Availability Designing
  Resilient Distributed Systems by Evan Marcus

• www.globalcontinuity.com
• www.drj.com
• www.comdisco.com
• www.survive.com
• www.gartnergroup.com
• www.rothstein.com

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What Should Executives Ask?

• What is the state of recovery plans and are they
  comprehensive?
• Ask the CIO if you have backups completed
  regularly for critical data on major systems or
  workstations within the business units?
• Revisit physical protection, user authentication,
  access control, encryption, security management
  for networking and communications.
• Do you have a command center for the management
  team to discuss activities and communicate?

• Discuss possible contracts for replacement
  equipment or shipping of assets from technology
  vendors.
• How would our customers contact you in the event
  of an outage?  Have we redirected call traffic to
  an alternate number?
• Do all executives understand their altered role
  to be performed at time of disaster and their
  successor?
• How are critical non-electronic documents
  protected and where are they stored, or they
  taken off-site?

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The 7 Key Points to Take Home

• Know how you will communicate with
• Employees
• Customers
• Other Corporate Offices
• Develop and post rally points
• Develop a portal to communicate proactively
• Follow the wire and know the information flow
• Test with who will recover and use backups
• Plans should be brief, adaptable and portable

20
Your Turn!

• Questions and Answers
• Damian N. Walch
• Senior Vice President, Professional Services
• Comdisco, Inc.
• 847.518.7756
• dnwalch_at_comdisco.com