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Business Continuity and Failover Solutions

Hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst

Failover on a budget
What is failover and why do you need it?

Failover is a backup operation that automatically switches to a standby database, server or network if the primary system fails or is temporarily shut down for servicing. Failover is an important fault tolerance function of mission-critical systems that rely on constant accessibility. Failover automatically and transparently to the user redirects requests from the failed or down system to the backup system that mimics the operations of the primary system.

There's no way to predict when disaster may strike, but smart strategizing now can save time and money – if not your entire business – when the time comes. With cost-containment at the forefront of corporate strategy in most organizations today, close attention needs to be paid not only to the workability, but also the expense, of business continuity planning. Simply put, companies cannot always afford to build redundant lights-out recovery facilities – or to lease pricey facilities from hot site providers – even to support the "always on" requirements of key mission critical applications.

The cost effective solution may be no further than your branch office network. Failover strategy can be created using available facilities. There are prerequisites for making such a strategy viable, non-disruptive, and beneficial to the organization beyond the scope of traditional recovery.

Redundancy with failover has always been the preferred strategy for ensuring the continuity of business critical applications and their supporting IT infrastructure. Build an identical environment at some distance from the production facility, then, when a disastrous event occurs, failover to the redundant facility to continue processing with minimal interruption. The high costs of such a strategy were a given.

Indeed, such a strategy eliminates disaster from the business vocabulary. With a working failover capability, there is no disaster, which we define as "an unplanned interruption of access to mission critical data for whatever constitutes an unacceptable period of time."

Frequently asked questions are:

  • How far should a primary site be from its redundant peer?
  • How could voice and data networks be re-routed efficiently to the alternative site if the production facility becomes untenable?
  • How could the two sites be kept in sync with one another as changes were made to software and hardware in the production environment that needed to be replicated at the remote site?
  • How do we relocate operations staff to the backup facility and provide for human needs while they are there?
  • How could end users continue to interact with systems at the recovery location if their work facilities, as well as the production datacenter were compromised?
  • How are distributed environments interconnected?
  • How will protection services be monitored?

Emerging Trends »

TechnologyUS has many proven solutions to eliminate the likelihood that your company would be impacted by these events. Having a Business Continuity and Failover plan in place is only part of the equation. It is vital to have your plan fully tested on a regular basis. Updates should be made on a monthly or quarterly basis (at a minimum). Implementation and testing is key to providing the assurance that your business will survive if an "event" should take place. Now what?

To learn more about our Business Continuity and Failover Solutions please contact 858.427.4464 or Request a Demonstration