The Role of Disaster Recovery Planning in Enterprise Storage Jon William Toigo Independent Consultant and Author

Evil stars. Strange though we are in the IT field, no one likes to think about disaster… Disaster = evil star “Promethean” mindset Ordered control

Staring Disaster in the Eye. A personal tale Bank of New York Norwest Financial Fire Hurricane Elena IBM BRS

Resources. See also

What I wish I had written. (Any of the below would do.)

All I know about DRP (BCP, BCRP, EIEIO) in one slide. An attempt to superimpose rationality on the great irrationality of disaster Typically made the responsibility of otherwise overworked individuals – and they tend to do the best job! No “gurus” Frequent rehearsal, cultivation of the corporate culture and careful consideration of local milieu determine successful implementation More important today than ever before…

Why? Disasters are NOT more common, but we are more vulnerable Business more dependent on technology infrastructure Individual acts can have far reaching consequences Industrialization has created new disaster potentials NE Ice Storm of 1998 Map of the Internet Oklahoma City Federal Bldg Three Mile Island

Survival strategy for business. Disaster Avoidance Systems Disaster Avoidance Systems Initiate Project Initiate Project Collect Data Collect Data Conduct Risk Analysis Conduct Risk Analysis Exposures & Strategies Network Recovery Strategy Network Recovery Strategy Applications Recovery Strategy Applications Recovery Strategy Data Recovery Strategy Data Recovery Strategy User Recovery Strategy User Recovery Strategy Plan Staffing/ Training Plan Staffing/ Training Plan Testing/ Maintenance Plan Testing/ Maintenance

Data is key to recovery. There is no purpose in recovering applications, systems, or networks if there is no data. Two basic strategies: Redundancy Replacement

Time is of the essence. Average of all industries: $1,010,536 per hour

Think Time-to-Data. A metric for evaluating DR strategy Based on application downtime tolerance and cost Determines criticality and priority of restoral of applications, systems and networks

Centralize or De-centralize? Centralization strengths Subject to disciplined management by trained IT personnel Easier to mirror and backup Potentially faster to restore De-centralization strengths Potentially less expensive to maintain Centrally-managed with optional local control Potentially more difficult to compromise

Kobe earthquake. Centralized Storage 4 Week Recovery Decentralized Storage 4 Hour Recovery

Mirror, mirror. Simple Surrogate WAN LAN, SAN, ESCON

Is tape dead? Don’t believe everything you read Speeds, lengths, compression algorithms, reliability improving Networked storage breathes new life into silo sharing and tape virtualization Hype aside, tape is alive and kicking, but… Tape is cheap, but disk storage costs are declining New optical technologies, including recordable DVD and exotic media, are in the works

Pundits.

Cross-platform restoration. What do current initiatives in the areas of “server-free” or “third party” backups mean to data DRP? Must data be recovered on an identical storage infrastructure?

Proaction is better than reaction. DR considerations must be part of all applications development and platform design decisions Ensure hardware or software is Manageable Portable Resilient Secure

Conclusion. Becoming proactive isn’t easy Technical hurdles Commonsense is key

In the final analysis. All things are ready if our minds be so. -- William Shakespeare