There are two crucial questions that need to be answered when developing a disaster recovery strategy:

1) How much data are you prepared to lose?

2) How long can your computer system be non-operational?

The most common answers to these questions are “none” and “it can’t”. However, as the design of solutions to reach the ideal of each of these answers approaches, costs can increase exponentially. In designing a disaster recovery strategy, a compromise is normally reached between potential data loss, downtime and budget.

A variety of technologies exist to facilitate effective backup of data, broadly divided in to two different approaches:

Onsite: backing up data to a secondary device onsite can make use of the capacity available on the local network to enable technologies such as near real-time replication. This can be particularly effective when combined with Virtualisation technology to maintain a running replica of a virtual server ready to take over in the event of a failure. Locating target backup devices in a secondary location is ideal to avoid issues with theft or localised damage resulting from flood, fire or vandalism.

Offsite: moving large amounts of data offsite can be cumbersome if the upstream connection to the internet is not sufficient. This can be overcome by seeding an initial backup and then sending only incremental (delta) information over a slow link. Having a copy of data offsite can be the saving grace in the event of a large scale disaster.

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