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Disaster Looms
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AT&T MPLS
The AT&T Enhanced VPN - Network based service uses Multi Protocol
Label Switching (MPLS) protocol in the backbone. This automatically
gives you the flexibility of any-to-any connectivity among the
connected sites. It also enables you to establish a VPN with
inherent MPLS-based security on the same level as Frame Relay or
ATM, and allows you to easily implement new sites without needing to
reconfigure the entire VPN.
CA XoSoft
CA XOsoft™ Replication
r12 and CA XOsoft™ High Availability r12 are a robust business
continuity and disaster recovery solution set that integrates
replication, continuous data protection (CDP) and automated failover
for the protection of business critical applications. Market leading
features such as automated disaster recovery testing with CA XOsoft™
Assured Recovery™ option helps ensure successful recovery even
during unavoidable disasters.
From April 14, 2008
through June 30, 2008, qualified end users who purchase one or more
eligible CA ARCserve Backup r12 Suites, CA XOsoft Replication, CA
XOsoft High Availability or CA XOsoft Assured Recovery Option r12
products with enterprise maintenance can receive rebates ranging
from $75 to $300 per qualified purchase, up to a maximum of $1,500
per order.
Learn More
about CA XoSoft
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A wide variety of disasters can threaten an organization’s operations. Natural
disasters, political unrest, work stoppages, IT system or component failures, or
even localized problems such as commuting delays can cause disruptions.
All companies, regardless of size, need to prepare for both disasters and the
potential losses that often result from them. To be prepared, organizations need
to fully identify their critical business components and effectively manage
their risk.
Disaster planning should not be a one-time event but an ongoing process.
Companies need to periodically reevaluate their disaster plans, identify new
at-risk systems, and formulate new response procedures to make sure they are
fully prepared for the next disaster. Taking an ongoing and proactive approach
to business continuity is essential for preparedness. Plans should specify
redundant systems, backup sites, communication methods, and alternative work
sites. They also should include a process for maintaining customer
communications.
What are your Vulnerabilities?
Identifying your critical business processes and how they might be affected by a
crisis is a very important part of disaster planning and preparedness. This
involves developing a clear understanding of what functions are critical to your
business and how different disaster scenarios would affect them.
Before developing a disaster recovery and business continuity plan, you should
perform an analysis to identify what the costs will be in terms of lost revenue,
the effects on employees and customers, and even the public’s perception of your
business brand if there is a disruption of any of your critical processes.
Be Proactive
Taking a proactive approach to business continuity planning is the best way to
minimize the impact of disasters on customers and employees. It also minimizes
losses in customer confidence, market share, and revenue. The more an
organization prepares for disruption ahead of time, the less likely it will
suffer catastrophic impact from a disruptive event.
- Contingency Planning. Contingency plans should be developed to ensure
continuity of critical business operations as well as for how your
organization will work and communicate with key suppliers and vendors.
- Testing and Certifying. Business continuity plans must be tested regularly
and done in a way that’s as “real world” as possible to ensure that they will
be effective when disaster strikes. This requires developing a test plan,
which involves not only conducting table-top simulation exercises but also
actual recovery procedures to make sure they’ll work effectively in a crisis.
- Monitoring and Improving Performance. You need to consider how changes to
your business environment could affect your preparedness. To ensure that a
plan will work when disaster strikes, treat business continuity as an
organizational priority and require that departments review the plans
regularly.
Planning and preparation are essential to ensuring your company can deal with
disaster or other disruptive events. But actually implementing the tools and
technologies that keep your business going presents another set of challenges.
Shortage of staff, tight budgets and other constraints can sometimes prevent
even the best intentioned companies from putting the appropriate pieces in
place.
Business Continuity Tools
 Multi-location
offices have traditionally designed their technology infrastructure in a hub and
spoke topology, in which a number of remote sites connect to a central site; for
example, a head office and a number of subsidiary local area offices. The remote
sites do not have direct connectivity with each other, only to and from the hub.
Generally, this is designed as a Virtual Private Network (VPN) on a Frame Relay.
It is secure and efficient, although not necessarily the best configuration for
disaster planning. If the hub is disrupted, every location is in jeopardy.
 MultiProtocol
Label Switching (MPLS) Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) provide the same
privacy and security of a Frame Relay or ATM network. But an MPLS network is a
designed as a mesh structure, not a traditional hub and spoke design. That means
it can also offer any-to-any connectivity, which allows for very efficient data
transfer and highly dynamic load balancing.
An MPLS VPN is a natural platform for dynamic disaster recovery. Based on IP
routing, it’s simple to support multiple data centers in geographically
dispersed locations. To the users, it is as if each location was on the same
LAN. There is full connectivity between all sites in the VPN. Each site can
communicate with every other site. If one location is disrupted, the others can
continue business as usual.
There are also variations on fully-meshed VPNs in which certain sites are
prevented from having direct routes to each other; these are known as partial
mesh or hybrid VPNs.
In a disaster planning configuration, multiple data centers are set up in a load
sharing or primary/backup scenario. A great product to consider in your planning
is CA XOsoft.
The CA XOsoft Product Suite provides comprehensive replication of
applications, databases and files in real time, even as they are being accessed,
from one server to another. In a disaster recovery model, these servers would be
placed in different geographic locations and connected via an MPLS VPN. This is
not a backup of a specific point in time, but a transparent real time
duplication of everything on the primary server including open files.
If there is a disruption of service at the primary server, the XOsoft product
automatically reroutes users to the backup server in a near instantaneous
failover. In a disaster recovery model, this means that if something happens to
one location, users at other locations can continue to operate without
disruption.
We hope disasters never occur, but to just hope that they won’t isn’t prudent.
At worst, your company could lose large amounts of information and money —
possibly crippling your business. At best, you could be prepared for a disaster
scenario and continue business with minimal disruption.
Learn More about CA XoSoft |
