Disaster Recovery and High Availability Techniques

High Availability and Disaster Recovery

• High availability is fault protection against minor outages that do not exceed the margins defined in SLAs, focusing on redundancy.
• Disaster recovery is fault protection against major outages that exceed SLAs and where users are aware of the outage, considering how the business can continue with reference to RTO and RPO.

Business Continuity and BCP

• Business Continuity Planning (BCP) is a holistic management process that identifies potential threats to an organization and develops strategies to mitigate them.
• BCP vs DRP: BCP is a broader term that includes disaster recovery planning (DRP) as a component.

Business Impact Analysis (BIA)

• Network-centric BIA identifies how business will be impacted without network availability.
• Scenarios include security breaches, product/technology failure, natural disasters, financial crises, workplace violence, and environmental crises.
• Identify critical operations, dependencies, and the gravity of disruption.

Identifying Critical Operations and Dependencies

• Check business priorities and identify how each scenario will impact operations.
• Identify dependencies between IT and applications and operations.
• Determine the gravity of disruption: could be suspended, scaled down, or tolerate short periods of disruption.

IT Department Responsibilities

• Focuses on managing the IT department and ensuring that technology supports internal processes and operations.
• Responsible for IT infrastructure, budgeting, and strategic planning.
• CIO is responsible for developing and implementing disaster recovery plans and business continuity plans.

Developing Disaster Recovery Plans

• Identify critical IT systems and data to be recovered.
• Develop procedures for data backup and damage assessment.
• Establish incident response times and improve them if necessary.
• Identify essential business functions and processes.
• Develop procedures for maintaining contact with key vendors and suppliers.

Developing Business Continuity Plans

• Ensure the organization can continue core business operations after a disaster.
• Identify essential business functions and processes.
• Develop procedures for maintaining contact with key vendors and suppliers.

Roles and Responsibilities

• CIO: provides leadership and coordination during disaster recovery and business continuity efforts.
• IT department: responsible for IT infrastructure, budgeting, and strategic planning.

Developing DR Plan and Implementation

• Identify business processes, operational impact, and affordable downtime.
• Identify system components, dependencies, and recovery time.
• Develop key recovery targets (RTO and RPO).
• Identify resource requirements for each scenario.
• Identify recovery priorities and balancing cost.

Preventive Controls and Contingency Strategies

• Identify preventive controls for critical scenarios.
• Develop contingency strategies to mitigate risks.

Developing BCP/DR Plan

• Build a roles and responsibility chart.
• Develop a communication plan with clear procedures for disseminating internal and external communications.

Communication Plan

• Identify crisis communication team members.
• Develop procedures for internal and external communication.
• Identify stakeholders and develop a communication flow.
• Set up notification systems and monitoring of traditional and social media.

Training and Testing

• Training is critical for successful DR and BCP implementation.
• Practice reduces the time taken to think and take actions.
• All involved must be trained, and the rest of the staff must be notified about the BCP/DR plan.
• DR drills must be done periodically, with a standard period of 6 months for enterprises.

High Availability and Disaster Recovery

• High availability is fault protection against minor outages that do not exceed the margins defined in SLAs, focusing on redundancy.
• Disaster recovery is fault protection against major outages that exceed SLAs and where users are aware of the outage, considering how the business can continue with reference to RTO and RPO.

Business Continuity and BCP

• Business Continuity Planning (BCP) is a holistic management process that identifies potential threats to an organization and develops strategies to mitigate them.
• BCP vs DRP: BCP is a broader term that includes disaster recovery planning (DRP) as a component.

Business Impact Analysis (BIA)

• Network-centric BIA identifies how business will be impacted without network availability.
• Scenarios include security breaches, product/technology failure, natural disasters, financial crises, workplace violence, and environmental crises.
• Identify critical operations, dependencies, and the gravity of disruption.

Identifying Critical Operations and Dependencies

• Check business priorities and identify how each scenario will impact operations.
• Identify dependencies between IT and applications and operations.
• Determine the gravity of disruption: could be suspended, scaled down, or tolerate short periods of disruption.

IT Department Responsibilities

• Focuses on managing the IT department and ensuring that technology supports internal processes and operations.
• Responsible for IT infrastructure, budgeting, and strategic planning.
• CIO is responsible for developing and implementing disaster recovery plans and business continuity plans.

Developing Disaster Recovery Plans

• Identify critical IT systems and data to be recovered.
• Develop procedures for data backup and damage assessment.
• Establish incident response times and improve them if necessary.
• Identify essential business functions and processes.
• Develop procedures for maintaining contact with key vendors and suppliers.

Developing Business Continuity Plans

• Ensure the organization can continue core business operations after a disaster.
• Identify essential business functions and processes.
• Develop procedures for maintaining contact with key vendors and suppliers.

Roles and Responsibilities

• CIO: provides leadership and coordination during disaster recovery and business continuity efforts.
• IT department: responsible for IT infrastructure, budgeting, and strategic planning.

Developing DR Plan and Implementation

• Identify business processes, operational impact, and affordable downtime.
• Identify system components, dependencies, and recovery time.
• Develop key recovery targets (RTO and RPO).
• Identify resource requirements for each scenario.
• Identify recovery priorities and balancing cost.

Preventive Controls and Contingency Strategies

• Identify preventive controls for critical scenarios.
• Develop contingency strategies to mitigate risks.

Developing BCP/DR Plan

• Build a roles and responsibility chart.
• Develop a communication plan with clear procedures for disseminating internal and external communications.

Communication Plan

• Identify crisis communication team members.
• Develop procedures for internal and external communication.
• Identify stakeholders and develop a communication flow.
• Set up notification systems and monitoring of traditional and social media.

Training and Testing

• Training is critical for successful DR and BCP implementation.
• Practice reduces the time taken to think and take actions.
• All involved must be trained, and the rest of the staff must be notified about the BCP/DR plan.
• DR drills must be done periodically, with a standard period of 6 months for enterprises.

This quiz covers the concepts of disaster recovery and high availability techniques, focusing on fault protection and redundancy in systems.