Introduction

Imagine that after a disaster (natural, accidental or intentional), a company is involved in such a disaster that it needs to restore desktop running most of the tasks that were performed on the main site or another site as soon as possible. How is this possible? It is precisely this moment when a disaster recovery plan comes into play. Disaster recovery is the ability to recover the data quickly and completely as soon as possible. The type of disaster may vary, but the ultimate goal is always the same. Restore the activities of the company! A backup site is vital, but will be useless without a recovery plan. The plan for disaster recovery or business continuity plan will determine every facet of the process of disaster recovery.

What events denote possible disasters

• The company has the authority to declare a disaster and therefore, can put the plan into action
• The functions and responsibilities of all personnel are involved in implementing the plan
• An inventory of hardware and software is required to restore production
• A schedule listing the team members that make up the backup location, including a rotation schedule to support ongoing operations without stressing team members
• The sequence of events necessary to move operations from the backup location to the new data center

The disaster recovery plans often serve the purpose of gathering all the details. This level of detail is vital because in the event of an emergency, the plan may be the only thing left from your previous data center (obviously, in addition to off-site backups) to help you rebuild and restore operations.

Tip: The Disaster recovery plans should be readily available on your desktop, but it is also necessary to have copies outside of the Plan. Thus, a disaster that destroys your workplace will not reach the copies of the Disaster Recovery Plan.

A good place to store a local copy is the backup storage (if any). If it does not violate safety standards of your organization, copies may also be kept in the homes of key members of the team, ready for immediate use.

Customer premises (In-House): Building facilities along the lines of the main installation, which can be employed in an emergency is an expensive option.

Contracts with third parties: It involves the temporary use of the facilities of another company.

Empty place (Cold Site): This plan requires only an empty room with no computer equipment or connections to do the job. Everything should be taken further and there should be an estimated time in the plan to restore the environment.

Local partially equipped site (Warm Site): A place is half empty room with minimal equipment, tables, chairs and telephones, but not all computers, software and data is necessary to perform the work.

Equipped site (Hot Site): A place fitted or Hot Site, is a replacement facility, with specifications that meet the demand of the company, powered 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with systems, applications and data required to complete the work.

Cold or Hot Site does not refer to the temperature of the backup site. But the kind of environment needed to begin operations at the backup site. A cold backup site is a little more than an appropriately configured space in a building. Cold backup sites are the cheapest and given to companies that can support a time out of operation. A warm backup site is already stocked with hardware similar to what you have in your data center. To restore service, the last backups of your site storage facility should be delivered, and bare metal restoration should be complete before starting the recovery. Hot backup sites have a mirror image, so you can go into production when necessary. Your incoming data is replicated in real time or at planned intervals. As you can imagine, a hot backup site can be transformed in a full production in just a few hours. A hot backup site is the most expensive approach and more efficient disaster recovery plan. Given primarily for large corporations.

There are several different approaches and each has its strengths and weaknesses with regard to hiring employees. Hiring a disaster recovery company often gives you access to professionals skilled in guiding organizations through the process of creation, implementation and testing a disaster recovery plan. The hiring of employees with their own suppliers to support any doubt, it is an cost-effective option. Develop an agreement to share data centers with another organization can be more attractive, but it is generally not possible to play with long-term operations under such conditions as the owner of the data center must still maintain their normal production. Keeping a hot site and maintaining its readiness is an expensive option but the most functional. Ultimately, the choice of a backup site is a compromise between cost and need for your company in continuous production.

Availability of Backups When a disaster is declared: It is necessary that you follow the procedures developed in the planning, which needs to be carried step by step. If the steps are not followed as described, you may need to compromise with the high availability of the environment.

Tip: In the case of a disaster, the last backups of your old data center that you have will be of utmost importance. Consider making copies before transporting the backup to the destination.