DR Strategy for Microsoft Servers in the SMB Market
Introduction
Microsoft is the dominant player in Small and Medium Business (SMB) market. Typically in the SMB market, IT departments are always short staffed. A single person may be handling multiple databases, mail servers and networks and that person will not be an expert in all the areas. Loosing access to critical data for even an hour can cost a company millions of dollars. The National Archives & Records Administration reported that 93% of the companies that lost their data center for 10 days or more filed for bankruptcy within one year of the disaster. Hence a turnkey strategy for disaster recovery of Microsoft servers is crucial for SMBs.
DR Strategy for SMBs
To start with, companies have to decide whether to go for a tape backup or a disk-to-disk backup, or a combination of both. Tapes are the traditional way of doing backup, but when it comes to recovery, they are not very reliable. Based on statistical data, 30-40% of the data stored on tape can never be recovered. Disk-to-disk backup is fast, reliable, and the data can be recovered immediately. The best approach will be to back up the data to disk regularly and archive it to tape every week, every month, or every three months based on the criticality of the data.
Developing a disaster recovery plan for your environment is tedious and time consuming and hence many SMBs simply ignore or postpone it. If you can automate the entire process through configurable templates, then the entire process can be completed within a short period of time, saving time and resources. Also, one should focus not only on backup, but also on recovery. When a disaster occurs, it can take hours, if not days, depending on the complexity of the situation, to have all your systems and databases up and running. Users should look for applications that will help them to recover quickly without the need to write any script or code.
Companies can cost effectively create a disaster recovery site through secondary standby servers. Utilizing a standby server provides a high level of data protection and fast recovery of data if the primary server goes down for whatever reason. A standby server can also be accessed as a read-only device for other purposes, such as report generation, thereby offloading the primary server.
Sonasoft’s software is designed for disk-to-disk backup and it is application specific. Sonasoft’s SonaSafe application automates the entire backup process through configurable templates. When things go wrong, users can recover the entire server or database or mailbox or even a single message with just one click. Sonasoft also provides a cost-effective standby solution for SMBs.
Conclusion
Backup/Recovery and Disaster Recovery should be taken seriously by businesses of all sizes. In many SMB organizations, it is pushed to the bottom of IT to-do list. It is possible to cost effectively develop a DR strategy if it is done right. If you don’t have a proper disaster recovery plan today, start immediately in a small way and expand it over time.
Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/software-articles/dr-strategy-for-microsoft-servers-in-the-smb-market-885244.html
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