Disaster Recovery – The Basics

More and more I see companies who are backing up their data in quality ways, using a combination of good equipment, strong processes, and industry recommended best-practices.  Make no mistake – I’m happy about this.  But I’m also seeing many of these same companies who are considering their backup to be their disaster recovery plan.  Unfortunately, no data backup, no matter how good, is a disaster recovery plan.  Now, I’m not trying to preach about disaster recovery…well, okay, that’s a lie.  I’m planning on doing a little preaching.  But truly, there is a difference between a disaster recovery plan and standard data backup plan.  Ultimately, disaster recovery is the means to an end with the “end” being business continuity.  And everyone likes business continuity, right?  So whether you decide to put together a full-blown disaster recovery plan or just stay with your current data backup, knowing the difference can save your business lots of money.  Okay, I’m done preaching.  Here’s some valuable information about what makes up a good disaster recovery plan, and how to put one together…

Note:  A true disaster recovery plan includes phones, facilities, data, and more.  I’m just focusing on the data portion of things in this article.

Generally, “disasters” come in three flavors:

• Hardware failure (bad hard drive, motherboard, network card, etc.)
• Software failure (“bluescreen” is a familiar term for a reason)
• Physical failure (flood, fire, etc.)

So let’s keep things simple.  Good disaster recovery generally includes a mix of the following components:

• Quality data backup (preferably onsite and offsite)
• Imaging
• Redundancy

Let’s explore each of these in a bit more detail.

Data backup:

• Onsite – use a hard drive backup system (preferably a quality internal/external chassis that has removable drives).  In terms of reliability, ability to restore quickly, and length of service, hard drives are simply better than comparable tape systems.
• Offsite – Offsite backup solves a number of security & operational concerns, and is very cost effective these days (about $1 per GB per month is pretty common).  Because it’s automated, you don’t need to worry about people remembering to take data offsite and you can control the amount of data that is backed up offsite.

Imaging:  Imaging is the process of taking a “snapshot” of an operating system.  When applied to server systems, the use of imaging can literally save tens of thousands of dollars in recovery costs.  Imaging fails when it comes to restoring data granularly (a single e-mail, a single document, etc.), but for true disaster recovery, imaging can’t be beat.

Redundancy:  Creating a network devoid of “single points of failure” is almost always too expensive to employ, but the concept can be used effectively to significantly reduce the chance and effect “failure” can have on your business.  Some good uses of redundancy would be:

• Quality server design (multiple hard drives, fans, power supplies, etc.)
• Use of a quality SAN (Storage Area Network) in a virtualized server environment (VMware software is great in these environments)
• Server redundancy (two servers deployed in a fully redundant architecture).  Stratus Avance is amazing software that accomplishes this at a price small and medium sized businesses can absorb easily.
• Network switches deployed in a balanced architecture with enough capacity to assume full connectivity should one fail.

The last piece of a good disaster recovery plan is the plan itself.  Now that you have all these quality pieces in place, you still need to have a plan in place should a disaster strike.  Here are a few good ways to start putting your plan together:

1. Know your operational costs (by the day, by the hour, etc.).  Granted, this is only half the equation (operational costs don’t include the impact downtime will have on your clients, nor does it include other opportunity costs you may have), but it is an absolutely necessary ingredient for creating your plan.
2. Define your tolerance for downtime.  Some businesses can handle a day or two of downtime.  Others can’t afford an hour of downtime.  Determining how your tolerance for downtime will go a long way in putting your disaster recovery plan together
3. Define a budget.  If you know your operational costs are $25,000 per day (for instance), you then have good information from which you can create an appropriate budget for avoiding downtime.
4. Design your network appropriately (data backup, imaging, redundancy, etc.).
5. Put it on paper.  Just like everything else in business, putting it on paper helps make it happen.

What’s New…….

ITP, in a joint effort with our partner, Converged, is holding an event on February 11^th at the Chophouse in Madison that will display two of today’s most valuable technologies for business.  If you want to understand more about how you can guarantee network availability for your business; or how unified communications are changing the way businesses communicate with their customers, then you should attend this event.  Featuring live demonstrations of Stratus Avance high availability software and Shoretel VOIP phone systems, you will see how you can drive business through innovative, always available communications.

TDS Managed IP Revew – and tips for finding the right phone system

Here at ITP we do not install phone systems. We have, however, been hired to write requests for proposals for companies looking for a communications platforms and as such have a fairly in depth view of the industry while remaining impartial.

My only loyalty note is I myself have done contract work for Cisco system phone division in Seattle at one point and have experience with most the major modern platforms.  I also lead an in house project to make a selection for a midsized law firm.

Having established that background– one of the first solutions I evaluated was TDS Metrocom’s ManagedIP product.   The offering is compelling for time strapped organizations looking for enterprise class features without the up front cost of purchasing a unified communications platform.  Like all products I believe each has their fit.  I think managed IP solutions would work well for small 5 and under individual offices who really need the features and don’t have the time to manage their own MAC’s (Indistry term for “Moves, Adds, Changes”.  I have never seen a selection make the decision to go managed IP in an office with 10 or more phones from purely a cost standpoint.

Whenever you use a hosted product of this nature your paying to not have pain.  In this case to not have to worry about programming your phones or managing additional equipment.

Here is my problem.  MAC on new systems are very easy to do through web based interfaces and admin training is always included by the installer.  Even an expensive system for this price point on a 3 year lease (often with APR deals to get the business, Cisco, Avaya etc. all have leasing arms) means your saving significant money in years 1-3 and have a nearly free system thereafter.  Modern phone systems should last 5 – 8 years.  Even if your in a close 5 year cycle I think the numbers are not in ManagedIP’s favor.  ManagedIP sellers will say your Cisco system will need constant work and the bills will keep coming.  While operating system upgrades are suggested I have seen Cisco platforms run for literally years on end without restart or upgrade.  If you do need a new service release find a Cisco provider who will do that update for a flat fee.

Other considerations with hosting your phones is that often your custom software is looking for a TAPI system or something on the LAN itself for phone integration.  TDS’s managed IP does have software to look for any HTML formatted numbers like your iphone but may limit your ability to billback clients for calls or use a dialer in a piece of software.

One other note if you are running Windows Small Business Server beware that TDS’s equipment will possibly “accidentally” turn on DHCP to look for phones and when it does your SBS server will shut DHCP down and individuals will slowly lose network connectivity.  Make sure they setup their phones on a completely different subnet and VLAN.  Meaning if your computers are at 192.168.0.X the phones should be at 192.168.100.X

When selecting a non manged system really analyze how you use the phones.  Do not assume that a new system will have the same features as your 25 year old system.  Also make sure you involve the big 3, Cisco, Avaya and Shortel.   First of all involving them will allow each vendor to drop their price as they all have competitive pricing plans when “X” is in the bidding.  It is important to really evaluate the big brands like Cisco and weigh them against newer entrances like Shortel.

If your office is struggling with the decision consider hiring a 3rd party to help you navigate the sales talk and don’t ever buy a phone system from a sales person who says “Oh this phone system does everything”.  Hiring a 3rd party can often save you more than their cost for their expertise just in cutting through to the bottom line.

As always find a solution that best fits your needs and long term goals.  ManagedIP might be a good bridge but I don’t think its the future.  Sorry you spent all that money on broadsoft switches TDS…..