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AFFORDABILITY
AND RELIABILITY ARE
THE TWO KEY PHRASES
SOLIDIFYING DISASTER
RECOVERY PLANS
SearchDisaster
Recovery
AFFORDABILITY AND RELIABILITY ARE THE TWO KEY PHRASES SOLIDIFYING DISASTER RECOVERY PLANS
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Comprehensive
disaster recovery
testing plan can
prevent major
outages
H
How to complete a
disaster recovery
plan process without
funding
disaster recovery (DR)
aving a reliable
plan in place can mean the difference
between your network being down for
minutes or hours. Discover how consistent
and thorough testing of your DR plan can
prevent any major outages from happening in this expert. Then, find
out some quick and easy ways to put together a DR initiative without
breaking the bank.
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AFFORDABILITY AND RELIABILITY ARE THE TWO KEY PHRASES SOLIDIFYING DISASTER RECOVERY PLANS
COMPREHENSIVE DISASTER RECOVERY TESTING PLAN
CAN PREVENT MAJOR OUTAGES
Brien Posey, Microsoft MVP
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Comprehensive Large IT disasters can and do happen, and the only way to adequately prepare
disaster recovery
testing plan can for them is through a comprehensive disaster recovery testing plan.
prevent major
outages In August 2016, Delta Airlines suffered a major outage at its Atlanta com-
mand center due to a power failure. Lasting for almost six hours, the outage re-
How to complete a
disaster recovery sulted in a global computer failure that impacted airports as far away as Tokyo
plan process without and London. Gate agents had to write boarding passes by hand, and the airline
funding
was forced to communicate with passengers through Twitter.
Over the next several days, the chain reaction of events forced the cancel-
lation of more than 2,100 flights and tens of thousands of stranded passengers.
While Atlanta was the only city to suffer a power supply disruption, computers
around the world were impacted because of a complex system of interdepen-
dencies that ultimately relied on the computers in Atlanta remaining online.
As with any outage of this magnitude, the Delta incident raises a number
of questions. How did a single power failure ground an entire airline? What
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could the airline have done differently? What did Delta have for a disaster
recovery testing plan? And what should IT pros be doing to protect their own
organizations?
It was later discovered that approximately 300 of Delta's servers were not
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connected to a source of backup power. This lack of connectivity to a backup
Comprehensive power source likely contributed to the incident, but this also points to a much
disaster recovery
testing plan can deeper problem. Had Delta performed DR testing, the backup power connectiv-
prevent major
outages ity issue would have been discovered much sooner.
Ideally, failover testing and backup power supply testing should have been
How to complete a
disaster recovery done at the same time. While it would have been unwise to cut the power to see
plan process without if critical workloads fail over to an alternate data center, Delta's IT department
funding
could have initiated a manual failover and then tested the backup power after
all of its critical workloads had been safely moved to a location that would not
be impacted by the tests.
FOUR KEY DR TESTING PRACTICES
So what can corporate IT implement in its own disaster recovery testing plan
to avoid a Delta-like failure?
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Accept the idea that the data center is not a static environment.
Changes occur on a daily basis, ranging from the installation of a new OS patch
to something much more involved. Each change within the data center has the
potential to derail DR mechanisms that worked previously. As such, a DR test-
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ing plan must be an ongoing process, not an annual event.
Comprehensive Evaluate information systems in an effort to detect single points of
disaster recovery
testing plan can failure. Don't make the mistake of examining the infrastructure solely from
prevent major
outages a component level -- delve into the system level. In Delta's case, something in
the Atlanta data center acted as a single point of failure and caused a worldwide
How to complete a
disaster recovery outage. While it is tempting to point to the power supply as the single point of
plan process without failure, the real issue was the system connected to that power supply. After all,
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computers in Tokyo didn't fail because there was no power, they failed because
a system in Atlanta was offline.
Have a mechanism to automatically fail critical workloads over
to an alternate data center. Having failover capabilities isn't enough; the
secondary data center must also have sufficient resources available to ab-
sorb a failover. While this sounds like a basic principle, it is easy to overlook
the secondary data center when scaling workloads in the primary one. When
this happens, the secondary data center may have insufficient resources to
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accommodate a failover. Likewise, it is necessary to put policies in place to
prevent resources in the secondary data center from being used for purposes
other than business continuity. Otherwise, those resources can be encroached
upon by someone's pet IT project.
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Periodically evaluate the bandwidth consumed by off-site storage
Comprehensive replication. If an organization has created a disaster recovery testing plan
disaster recovery
testing plan can and implemented a secondary data center, it will presumably have put in place
prevent major
outages a storage replication mechanism that mirrors data to the secondary data cen-
ter. As workloads scale, the amount of bandwidth consumed by the replication
How to complete a
disaster recovery process can increase. This can cause bandwidth requirements to eventually
plan process without exceed the link's capacity.
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HOW TO COMPLETE A DISASTER RECOVERY PLAN
PROCESS WITHOUT FUNDING
Paul Kirvan, Independent IT consultant/auditor
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Comprehensive If you don't have the budget for a business continuity and disaster recovery
disaster recovery
testing plan can initiative, other options are available. This article provides several quick and
prevent major
outages easy ways you can complete a disaster recovery plan process with limited funds
and offers a specific example of how to make it work.
How to complete a
disaster recovery
plan process without INFORMATION IS OUT THERE!
funding
First, search the internet for whatever information you can obtain on the sub-
ject and use those discoveries to lay the groundwork for your disaster recovery
plan process.
A resource like SearchDisasterRecovery offers numerous free templates
and forms to build plans. Articles on SDR will help provide the necessary guid-
ance, plus tips and tricks to make your program a success.
In the past, some BC/DR standards were available for free download. Check
carefully, as today most are no longer free. Standards are helpful in ensuring
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you cover all of the issues when preparing a program. They are also valuable
from an audit perspective, as auditors are increasingly aware of the importance
of auditing BC/DR plans and programs.
Several organizations, such as the Business Continuity Institute and the
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Disaster Recovery Institute International, provide a wealth of information on
Comprehensive all aspects of the profession, plus how-to articles that can help you get started.
disaster recovery
testing plan can In reality, you may be able to research and complete a BC and/or DR plan
prevent major
outages without spending a dime. The only real investment in the disaster recovery plan
process will be your time and your partners' time. Can BC and DR be performed
How to complete a
disaster recovery with little to no investment? Based on the vast amount of ready to use tools and
plan process without information available today, the answer is definitely "yes."
funding
A CRASH COURSE ON THE DISASTER RECOVERY PLAN PROCESS
The following example applies to a small or medium-sized organization.
Suppose you receive an OK from senior management to complete a plan,
but are told no funding is available due to budget shortfalls. First, identify the
steps you'll need to take to complete the plan. This information can be found in
numerous places, including at the resources noted earlier in this article.
The DR project plan will also identify specific departments whose input
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will be important.
You'll need to decide if you want to pursue a business impact analysis and
risk assessment, as these two activities contribute significant data to the plan
development process. If that's not going to happen -- for example, if manage-
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ment has given you a tight timeframe -- begin your research to find a suitable
Comprehensive template with a framework and content that meet your requirements.
disaster recovery
testing plan can Once you find something suitable, begin filling out the blank areas, espe-
prevent major
outages cially the list of contacts for internal teams, employees, key stakeholders, ven-
dors and suppliers. Some of these you may have to compile from other master
How to complete a
disaster recovery lists, so consider doing that first.
plan process without You may need to rewrite paragraphs in sections like the purpose, scope,
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objectives and criteria for declaring a disaster. Be sure to tailor the content in
your disaster recovery plan process to your organization.
Carefully examine the procedures for responding to an incident if they are
in your template. Determine if they are reasonable and can be performed by
members of an emergency team. Including an incident response plan is desir-
able, but under the circumstances, you may wish to defer it.
Be sure to reference any technology disaster recovery plans that may be
available, as they will help recover the systems and infrastructure needed in
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your plan.
If, for some reason, you have no DR plans, proceed as if they are in place.
Once you have completed a draft plan, and if you have time, circulate it to
your management and others in the organization for their comments. Use their
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input to update your plan.
Comprehensive Assuming you have time for this project and can find suitable resources as
disaster recovery
testing plan can described above, you ought to be able to complete a plan in a week or less.
prevent major
outages
How to complete a
disaster recovery
plan process without
funding
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