Chapter 17. Backups and Disaster Recovery

• Backup and Restore Procedures

• Disaster Planning and Recovery

• Directory-Specific Issues in Disaster Recovery

• Backups and Disaster Recovery Checklist

• Further Reading

• Looking Ahead

The data contained in your directory is (or soon will be) critical to the day-to-day operation of your organization. If that data becomes unavailable as a result of equipment failure or data corruption, your business's bottom line could suffer. Sound backup and restoration procedures safeguard your important data from damage. In addition to a backup strategy, you should have a disaster recovery plan that details the procedure for your organization to put its directory systems back in service after a disaster such as a fire or flood.

Of course, comprehensive backup and disaster recovery plans involve all the various information technology (IT) services provided, including file systems, databases, and applications. We won't attempt to provide a comprehensive guide to backup and disaster recovery in this chapter. Instead we'll focus on the specifics of backing up and restoring directories, and how these procedures differ from other backup/restore procedures that might be familiar. We'll also discuss disaster recovery procedures as they pertain specifically to your directory. With this knowledge you should be able to incorporate your directory into your established backup/restore and disaster recovery plans. For a more general guide to disaster recovery, see the Further Reading section at the end of this chapter.