Surname 1 Your name Instructor Course Date High Availability/Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery. High availability is the assessment to quantify the system’s ability to remain at its normal state of operation at the time of occurrence of a failure in the components of a system. To achieve high availability, the most common approach is by building several levels of fault tolerance and building a system with capabilities of load balancing (Prusinski, 2011). For the case of disaster recovery, it is the process of restoring normalcy of the system’s acceptable working condition in the event of a disaster. While both works to ensure high availability, their main aim is to address the issues with the system’s non-functional requirements such as data retention, fault tolerance, performance, system’s availability and ensure business continuity. The approach designed should, however, be addressed with respect to business requirements. Through this article, I am going to present a proposal for ensuring high availability/business continuity and a disaster recovery plan basing on a Windows operating system’s environment. High availability. Availability of data is critical considering the company works at a 24/7 schedule and demands that all services are working at acceptable condition else may result in revenue loss. A proactive strategy has to be designed to reduce chances or mitigate the threats with regards to high- Surname 1 availability strategy. Before giving a description of high-availability strategy, I find it critical that I access the causes of component failure as a guide to the presentation of the approach. What causes downtime and data loss? Planned downtime; this event arises when the technical team has a scheduled upgrade of hardware/software components, batch operations, and database maintenance. While for the case of unplanned downtime may arise from; failure of a data center, server failure, failure of subsystems, and failures resulting from human errors. Approach/strategy. To realize high availability, it is important to consider other relevant member’s contribution since the concept of loss and downtime has to be addressed with respect of risks and costs at the event that the organization will fail. Requirements. The purpose of this requirement gathering to enable the technical staff in generating a prioritized list of the data that needs to be protected with respect to urgency, the purpose, and level of usage. In these case, with consideration of system’s components, component’s performance, and the acceptable amount of time and data that can be lost. The main requirements for high availability are; Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO). RTO is the maximum downtime that can be allowed in case of a failure. While RPO is the acceptable maximum quantity of data that can be lost in the event resulting from the failure. Below are the requirements; Surname 1 • Server 2012 R2 server must be online 24/7 since access to all networks and storage for online services and records via the portal are dependent on this particular server and at no time should it be down. Server 2012 R2 server also depends on CISCO 1841 router for all networking services required by the system. Since all server services are dependent on this, downtime of any kind shall not be tolerated. Dell PowerConnect 2824 switch should be in good condition since it is the basis of interconnection between devices integrated to work together for service provision. Downtime will result in underutilization of services some it is the basis of access to databases by Server 2824 server. It should be available 24/7 and downtime shall not be tolerated. Server 2012 R2 server security is dependent on Cisco ASA 5505 for protection against intrusion and fake traffic to the organization’s network. To ensure effective performance and maintenance of this server, this firewall must be operational for 24/7. Any downtime shall not be tolerated. • Dell PS6100 should be in good condition since it is responsible for access to critical blocks of data to the server 2012 R2 to ensure that storage devices are accessible servers and recognized by the operating system as locally attached devices. This system should be available for 24/7 as it is the basis of access critical data and libraries to the server computer. • Virtual server 2016 domain controller should be in good working since it is responsible for running active directory domain services. It should be available for at least 18 hours a day to ensure remote access to servers is authenticated and reduce the risk of attacks. • Virtual server 2008R2 should be available 24/7 considering it is the basis of all online application data storage. Downtime shall not be tolerated. Surname 1 • Server 2012 should be available 24/7 since it is all customer transactions are stored here. Downtime may result in delay or unavailability of customer data critical for the transaction. • Server 2016 should be online throughout since it is responsible for hosting all HR applications. Downtime shall not be tolerated. • File server for network sharing, server 2012 should be online for at least 18 hours a day considering that it is responsible for file sharing. • Virtual server 2016 should be available for 15 hours a day to enable authentication of all remote working employees and facilitate attendance to designated areas. • Server 2008R2 should be available 24/7 considering that it is responsible for hosting all company applications. Downtime will result stop all transactional services. Failure or downtime shall not be tolerated. • Server 2003 should be online from 8am-6pm from Monday to Friday. And no failure will be tolerated since it plays a critical role in the printing services within the organization. • Non-technical factors include temperature, power, and human errors. Technologies. The main technologies involved are those for; logging and recovery, backups and backup, strategy. Surname 1 Backup and restore. Instant file utilization. The technology available in all versions of windows server. It grants windows to utilize the privilege to the SQL server. This will help the system to reduce the amount of time to restore data. Druva Phoenix Can be used for both physical and virtual servers. It has the capability of bringing together backups, archival in the cloud and disaster recovery hence lowering TCO. It eliminates the difficulty of managing mixed environments with regards to need to access remote urgency sites. How will this help RTO and RPO in disaster recovery? RTO; For ordinary backup, a process might take 2 hours. You then set a scheduled backup that would last for 6 hours. To minimize the time for backup, Druva enhances the service level and time to back up by facilitating the use of mirrored links. RPO; Druva will reduce the amount of data lost during an event resulting in data loss. To meet recovery time objective, it uses secure cloud backup and data is availed for usage any time there is a downtime in the SQL servers (Hayat, 2018). Logging. Instant fusion Handles text-based log-dumps for remote logs and event remote logging channels. It has a tabbed interface, customizable columns and a high quality based functionality. Surname 1 Data/service availability during disasters. Partial database availability and online piecemeal restore. Gives the database the option of using both online and offline databases for transactions. This would help achieve normal functioning at the time when the system is down. It also offers an option of regular processing of files at all times since similar file groups are available online and offline. This will help in reducing RTO (Hayat, 2018). Mirrored backups. Mirrored backups enable the server to operate at its normal functioning during the event of a loss. This will enable the system to utilize replicated copies of data stored at different database but similar to the ones that were previously being used (Lin, 2016). RTO will be reduced since accepted standards of functioning shall be attained. Compression. To reduce the amount of space occupied by data and reduce the amount of time to restore data to the system data can be compressed or zipped. This shall enhance achievement of RTO and RPO. Others; replication and cloud storage. SQL servers should be added to provide an offline backup plan for the system. This is in case all network SQL databases are attacked or manipulated. This will enhance availability at the time of disaster. Disaster recovery. Natural catastrophe or accidents causes’ great damage to an organization. IT infrastructure is always the most affected when disasters occur. It is important to ensure that an Surname 1 organization is prepared for these occurrences. To reduce the impacts of these disasters an organization shall need to draft a plan which shall act as a guide in case a disaster occurs, leave nothing to chance. A disaster recovery plan entails steps that are going to be taken to restore the acceptable standards of service provision in case of an occurrence leading to a loss. To effectively come up with a plan we first have to do an impact analysis. Considering the environment, the following could be some possible impacts of disasters; The network; in case of an occurrence the network within the organization shall be impaired, this shall block access to services and data in the service. Communication within the organization and to outside the organization shall not be possible. Services; services that is provided by the server computer shall be unavailable. Access to data that is stored to shall also not be possible. Data loss; damage of storage systems within the organization shall result in data loss. Customer data and organizational data is going to be interfered with. Staff; staff shall be may encounter either physical harm or psychological harm in case they encounter a disaster. It might also result in loss of life. This shall impair service provision. Infrastructure; disaster may lead to damage of organizational infrastructure. Damage of IT infrastructure shall result in unavailability of all critical online services. Recovery strategy. Disasters are either foreseen or by accidents. If foreseen the organization shall be at a better position to do adequate preparations but if by accident it shall necessitate use of desperate measures. The following is the strategy to restore various activities within the organization. Surname 1 Data backup. Data backups have to be done at least after every 4-6 hours in the cloud. Logs for transactional data for the unbacked data should be updated every 5 minutes from the instant logging system. This data should be retrieved later in case of an occurrence by the responsible personnel. It is the responsibility of the head of departments to assign roles to members about what they shall do in case of occurrence. The damaged storage systens shall be replaced specifically by the tendered company with supervision from local staff. It is the responsibility of the designated staff to ensure that all the damaged disks are destroyed by crashing or by burning to ensure that customer private data is protected. In case of any leakage the staff designated shall be held responsible. Staff. There should be an external temporary accommodation for the staff. Moreover, setting up an emergency data center with replicates of the data in the local physical servers shall enable the staff to assume their normal activities quickly during and after the event. It is the responsibility of the organization also to evacuate the staff and infrastructure within the premises. Staff shall resume their normal working. A team has to be set to perform the recovery plan by various head of the departments. The organization must care for its staff therefore it is the anything shall be done to ensure that they are safe. Services. Provision of services during the event will be affected, a backup team shall be responsible for attending to activities in the organization. The backup systems have to be allocated to aid during these occurrence. In case of occurrence the traffic to local physical server shall have to be redirected to backup server. A fully functional high speed transactional server has to be allocated to handle this activities without compromising the quality. Surname 1 Damages. The tendered companies should ensure that they restore the damaged electronics within the stipulated time as per the consent. It shall be the responsibility of the staff involved to ensure that all the systems are restored back to their initial state of normalcy. Disaster recovery team. A Technical team has to be formed that will look on to ensuring normalcy state is achieved at an event resulting in a loss. This shall help achieve RTO considering that each team member will be aware of his/her role when a disaster occurs. Additional infrastructure and costings. To ensure smooth execution of activities, an optional ISP router will be necessary. This shall be obtained from a different ISP to enhance network availability in a downtime with the consideration that we only have one ISP. Object Type specifications High speed backup Remote 192 GB RAM, 250 GB server computer ISP additional HDD wireless 100 mbps and 25mbps ISP Virtual 10TB wireless router Backup space Dell power connect physical 1GBPS In addition the organization should allocate emergency funds. Cost Surname 1 Conclusion. Ensuring high availability of data to ensure business continuity in case of occurrence of unpredicted hazards (Clitherow, 2008). This will improve efficiency and convenience during this period and enhance the availability of services at downtimes. Various technologies have been improvised to help in the realization of a resilient system whose services is available event at the time of loss. Surname 1 References Clitherow, D. et al. "Combining High Availability And Disaster Recovery Solutions For Critical IT Environments." IBM Systems Journal 47.4 (2008): 563-575. Web. Hayat, Zulqarnain, and Tariq Rahim Soomro. "Implementation Of Microsoft SQL Server Using ‘Alwayson’ For High Availability And Disaster Recovery Without Shared Storage." International Journal of Experiential Learning & Case Studies 3.1 (2018): 09-17. Web. Lin, Guoyong, and Fan Huang. "Research On Database Remote Disaster Recovery And Backup Technology Based On Multi Point And Multi Hop." International Journal of Database Theory and Application 9.6 (2016): 265-274. Web. Prusinski, Ben, and Syed Jaffer Hussain. Oracle 11G R1/R2 Real Application Clusters Essentials. Birmingham, U.K: Packt Enterprise Pub, 2011. Print.
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