RobertsITConsulting

Most organizations and individuals understand the importance of performing backups of their data.  In the event that disaster strikes the device that contains it, the data is protected and recoverable.  However, in most cases, the ability to restore business operations when disaster strikes your IT infrastructure requires more than recovering data from a backup.  Especially when a business-critical system, such as a file or application server, suffers an unforeseeable, irrecoverable problem. Recently, one of our customers suffered a true disaster.  The incident affected their primary file/application server, which hosted all of their business-critical databases, files, and software.  Due to the nature of the incident, it was not possible for the server to be brought back online.  Being a multi-million dollar business, having a recent backup of their data was simply not enough… the company needed their system back online.  Because they had a disaster recovery plan in place, which included a backup file server located off-site, we were able to restore all business operations within hours of problem diagnosis. It’s important to note that this organization relies on their database servers to function.  The amount of data, software, and number of users require that a server be used.  Therefore, it was not possible to deploy any of this, even on a temporary basis, to a regular desktop PC.  Furthermore, the server that malfunctioned was only 4 years old, and all pre-cautions and best-practices were implemented.  Although incidents like this are extremely rare, they can still happen. Most organizations rely more on their IT assets now than ever before.  Therefore, it is imperative that an adequate plan is in place that will enable not only the recovery of critical data, but also the operation of your [...]