What is DR Planning?

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Disaster Recovery (DR) planning is the process, policies and procedures of restoring IT operations critical to the continuation of business, including regaining access to data (records, hardware, software, etc.), communications, workspace, and other business processes after a natural or human-induced disaster.

What are Backups and how do they work?

Backup tapes are the basis of any DR planning. The idea is that you backup your data daily (this could be once or more often) to tapes which then provide you with a copy of the day’s work undertaken. These can then be utilised to restore the data to your server in the event of a failure. A recovery process would also need to be in place for the server as well.

There are two options with backup storage; one is onsite whilst the other is offsite. Whilst it may be cheaper to keep tapes onsite, it can also be dangerous from the point of view that they are at risk from flood, fire and humans. Storing tapes offsite in a secure location ensures that as long as the backup took place effectively, i.e. the tape didn’t get damaged or the backup interrupted, then you have the ability to restore data to your recovered server. It must be borne in mind that the data will however likely be from the day before and so a days’ work may be lost unless more regular snapshots are taken. The only other problem is the time it takes for this process to occur and that the restore goes without any hitches.

We will be happy to discuss the variables and guide you in the usage of Backup tapes.
Microsoft Support
Further Information

Replication – Failover

Replication of data can occur at the same time or at different times and can be continuous or taken as regular snapshots, with the latter being more beneficial. Most replication solutions are usually married with some form of failover process. The failover can be either manual or scripted to allow applications to be started up on a backup server. This is a good solution for recovering data and non-critical applications. However, dependent upon the outage, users could find the impact to be considerable upon their working time.
TCS Whitepaper
Further Information

Clustering

Clustering can best be described as a technology that automatically allows one server to take over the running of application workloads and tasks quickly from a server that has failed. To ensure this works well, usually a number of servers are used which can make this an expensive solution. It should be noted that Cluster solutions are focused on application availability, they do not protect the data and therefore outages can still occur and data can still be lost.
Microsoft TechNet - Exchange Server TechCenter
Wikipedia - Computer Cluster

High Availability/Business Continuity

High Availability also referred to as User or Business Continuity, is best described as software that delivers continuous availability and data protection for critical applications, regardless of the nature of the outage whether it be component failure to full site disaster. Users need to be able to work no matter what the time of day or what type of issue a system may encounter. This is very similar to clustering in its failover to a secondary server to keep users connected, but with the addition of real time replication of data, thereby ensuring true continuity of workflow. There are a number of companies providing this type of solution with variations in automation of failover and replication to be considered.
Neverfail - Whitepaper

We can assist in assessing your requirements and advising you accordingly on the most suitable solution for your company.

Encryption

What is encryption? A method of scrambling the information contained within an email so it can only be read by the person it is intended for!

Ensure that emails containing important data are encrypted! There are too many hackers out there who can intercept your emails and obtain important and private data if you do not use encryption. Microsoft Outlook has the facility to encrypt and/or use digital ID’s or certificates in this respect. You can either encrypt individual messages or all messages being sent between colleagues. You can also digitally send a message which puts your signature to the message. This information proves to the recipient that you signed the contents of the message and not an imposter, and that the contents have not been altered in transit. This can be in addition to encryption.

The other worry is what happens if you lose your laptop? Laptops can be replaced but there is sensitive information on there! Microsoft has various encryption services already available with servers. With Windows Vista there is a Drive encryption facility which not only protects the drive whilst online but also when offline or if the hard drive has been removed with the intention of tampering with it.

In addition, encryption should also be set up for any Blackberry units, particularly for confidential information.

We can of course give guidance and advice on any of the above.
WP Storage (PDF)
Wikipedia - Disk Encription Software
Techworld - What is Encription?

Archiving

Email is such an integral part of any business in today’s world and plays an important role in maintaining workflow. For instance, in respect of the legal profession, email is now seen as the electronic substitute for legal documentation and an actual record of information. All of these emails require to be kept which can take up a large amount of space on the server; hence the best course of action is Archiving.

A ‘true’ email archiving system automatically extracts message contents and attachments from incoming/outgoing emails and after indexing, it stores them in read-only format. This ensures that archived records are maintained in their original state. Archived emails take up less physical space wherever they are stored, which can be either the Exchange server or SQL, FileServer, etc.

By archiving emails it not only reduces the need for storage, but ensures that the company has a centralized and accessible copy of all emails, which also provides additional protection against accidental or intentional deletion of emails by end users. It also eliminates the need to search every personal archive on each and every machine when litigation support is requested.

Some companies utilise backup tapes for archiving, this can be very expensive given the amount of time and manpower it takes to search through them to find the right email!

For further information in this respect follow this link to a white paper which gives you more details.

Why Organizations Need To Archive Emails (pdf)