21.6. Planning for Disaster Recovery

Just having a backup set of data tapes is no guarantee of recovery. Backup sets should be tested for their ability to restore as well. Many times a critical restore has failed because of a physical problem with the tape or corruption in the backup data. A regular backup strategy helps to mitigate the potential negative impact of a bad backup. An even more robust backup strategy, however, incorporates a disaster recovery plan.

A disaster recovery plan is an integrated strategy of backup, restore, and recovery in the event of a disaster. It involves a regular backup rotation, a proven restore process, offsite storage of media, and procedures for re-creating the affected environment.

Another aspect often overlooked is access to operating system media and license materials. Although new backup software technologies allow "bare-metal restores," it is good practice to keep a copy of the operating system media and license keys at an offsite facility so that the affected system can be restored to a minimal state before the restore is applied.

Example

If fire were to damage a server room, a replacement server could be ordered, a SmartStart installation of the operating system could be performed, and then the restore could be applied to return the system to its predisaster state. Assuming that replacement equipment was readily available and backup media could be quickly retrieved, the organization could be up and running again in a matter of hours.