James, Do you have any photos of your DC underwater that you could share? This and your write-up will go a long way toward helping our management understand the risks.
Thanks... Roger Wright ___ "The internet is a great way to get on the net." – Bob Dole On Sun, Jan 30, 2011 at 9:05 PM, James Hill <james.h...@superamart.com.au> wrote: > We now have the majority of things restored and up and running. Below are > just some initial thoughts and ideas that I wanted to share with the list. > It is in no way any form of DR plan nor is it meant to indicate what we did > or didn’t have. It’s simply my experiences from our recent DR experience > written down for the benefits of others. > > > > Some or none of this may apply to you. I certainly do not regard myself as > any form of DR expert nor am I the first to have been through a real DR > experience. However if I am able to provide any info that can assist others > than I am more than happy to do so. > > > > · Don’t ever think it can’t happen, it can. > > · You do need a DR location, a live one if possible. Convince > management of this! > > · Build redundancy into your designs of everything. Thanks to this > all our stores were able to continue to trade even though the data centre > was under water. > > · If you have something in your environment that isn’t in your > backup schedule, add it now, no matter how small it may be. > > · Consider that staff with specific duties in your DR plan may not > be able to assist as they are tending to their own personal issues or > physical access is simply not available. > > · Services you take for granted may simply be not available. There > were power outages (some for weeks) and communication network outages. > Phone systems quickly become overloaded in a Disaster, especially > mobile/cell networks. > > · Make allowance for the following in your DR location(for > relocation of office staff) > > o Furniture for staff > > o Computers and comms > > o Power, can the circuits handle the extra load you will be adding to the > site? > > o Bandwidth > > o Air conditioning/heating > > · Have remote visibility of your data centre and its surroundings > > o A camera or two would have shown us the level of the water and we could > have saved much more equipment. > > · Add sensors to your data centre that shuts off the power if water > is detected. > > · Exchange cached mode and offline files provide quick access to > much critical information. > > · Keep critical infrastructure/server build/networking documentation > in multiple places. > > o I had a recent backup at my personal residence. It was invaluable in > the early stages of our Recovery. > > · Data restores > > o Do test restores regularly. Environments change all the time and maybe > something hasn’t been added to the backup list for that server. > > o Ensure that you can retrieve critical data quickly. Restores take > time. > > o Tapes – do anything to avoid them, if you have to use them have > multiple tape drives available so that restores can be conducted more > quickly. > > o Have backup backup servers. Especially with the tape catalogues > available. We saw cataloguing of tapes take 14 hours plus. > > o Have an offsite location authorised as a delivery point with your > Offsite Tape holder. > > · Check your emotions at the door. Remain calm and logical, > consider others needs. The people that are true leaders(that doesn’t > necessarily mean all Managers) should be running the show. Everyone else > will be looking to them for guidance. > > > > · Fire and water make fantastic servants, they are horrible masters. > > > > James. > > > > > > ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ > ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ > > --- > To manage subscriptions click here: > http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ > or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com > with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin
