Hardware will fail, and your operations will be interrupted at some point. Your organization needs to come up with an appropriate Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and find ways to minimize that RTO to acceptable levels. One way to reduce your RTO, and minimize downtime, is by using StorageCraft HeadStart Restore. Traditional recovery from backups can take several hours to export the data from the backup repository. This can vary based on the amount of data being restored and the performance of disk subsystems.
HSR Pros
StorageCraft HSR cuts down on restore times, often to under less than an hour. The HSR job on the StorageCraft installation continuously exports backups to virtual standby disks. Then, it’s possible to create a new virtual server from these standby disks, and thus recover the failed server.
The HSR solution additionally prevents disruption to your business. Employees can still access the database once the HSR is up and running. Any changes made to the virtual server will be recorded in new incremental backups. Once database repairs are complete, you just need to apply the latest backup, finalize the HSR job, take down the VM, and bring the database server back up. This all happens with minimal downtime or interruption to normal operations. It’s also possible to use HSR as a way to migrate database servers without any practical downtime.
HSR Cons
There are a couple of downsides. One is that you are using resources by having the HSR job running, and utilizing extra storage by having the backups on these virtual standby disks. Additionally, you’ll want to have a virtualization platform separate from where the process is running to host the recovery server. Use a VM such as Hyper-X or VMware to achieve this.
Independent of any extra resource costs, they can be offset through reduced downtime for server environments. StorageCraft HSR can turn catastrophe into a minor annoyance, and make your RTO as short as possible.
Have you experienced a problem with downtime? Contact Sikich to discuss options for your specific IT needs.
