The clue is in the name Disaster Recovery (or DR as its known in tech circles) is the process or restoring operations after a major disaster, This could be a physical disaster such as a building fire or a communications failure such as loss of internet and anything else in between. Typically DR is a title reserved for situations where the entire business operation is compromised so having a single printer offline or 1 computer offline would not typically constitute a disaster.
We base good DR plans on 3 key sages – PLAN | TEST | IMPLEMENT (Recover) and ideally you would never ever get to stage 3.
Stage One – PLAN
The first stage in any decent DR system is having a good plan in place. First you need to establish what the baseline is in terms of functional operations, what is the minimum required to keep going in the event of disaster? How many of of your servers need to be operational? What internet connection speed do you need? How many workstations (and which) need to be operational? Do you need additional equipment operational such as printers / Card payment terminals / Phones? Do (and can) your operations be ran from another location in the event of complete building loss? How quickly do you need to be back up and running?
We suggest a in-house questionnaire with internal staff to get an idea of what is required in terms of minimal functionality then this info can be used to form a technical framework to build a DR plan off.
As an example lets take a SMB business (Accountants) , they employ 5 staff members and have the following hardware/systems in place on site:
- Physical Server upon which they have 2 virtual servers (1 x DC/DNS/DHCP Server running the network & 1 x FILE SERVER for shared Sage data)
- A single business fibre broadband connection (80Mb) via a Draytek enterprise grade router
- A 24 Port PoE Switch controlling network access for PC’s and Phones (providing power to phones also)
- A PBX/Hybrid phone system using SIP trunks and local hardware
It is decided that they cannot operate without access to their 2 servers but they can forward calls to a mobile.
Our advice in this situation would be to implement the below
- Setup an additional virtual server to act as a slave/replica of their main server – this is critical because without a working DC server they would have no network / no login access. In addition we would suggest implementing a Cloud based replication of their DC server via our SPX backup system. This means that even if their physical server has failed we can load a cloud version of their DC server and have them operational within a very short window.
- Backup Files and golden images (via SPX) to both a local fast backup source (NAS) and also replicate to cloud storage every 30 mins
- Install a 2nd 80Mb Fibre connection and have connected as WAN2 into the Draytek router with settings configured so the router will automatically switch connections in the event of a failure
- Configure folder redirection to ensure all user desktop/documents data is stored on the file server (which in turn is backed up)
- Migrate their hybrid phone system to our fully hosted service. This allows you to maintain full connectivity via companion smart phone apps using any network available (WiFi or 4G) – This would negate any need for ‘call forwarding’ and all current call queues and call handling systems would remain in place.
Stage two – Test
A common mistake made by other MSPs is to implement a DR plan but then actually test it. How do you know your backup is good? Ok so your backup system shows a successful backup but that does not mean it will restore correctly. Have you tested working from out the office?
Here at The Red Penguin Group when we implement a DR system we also advise to run test restores of backups and complete drills to test the resiliency of your ability to work remotely. In fact the COVID-19 Pandemic brought about a situation in which we ourselves had to implement some of our DR strategies and thankfully because we utilize a fully hosted cloud VOIP telephone system we were able to continue taking calls remotely without any loss of service. Using the Office UC app combined with our hosted VOIP platform made the process seamless!
Ask yourself the below questions:
- When was your backup last actually tested i.e. have you actually tried a ground up restore of your backup
- Have you tested your ability to work remotely and what issues arose when/if you tried
Step Three – Implement
Now its time to put the plan to fruition , We can get you the kit and processes in place that you need and get a working , tested DR plan in place all whilst taking into account your budget and time frame. We aim to minimize disruption and invariably we can complete the work without any loss of service or connectivity.
When implementing any DR process its vitally important that you have a well documented road map of how your DR works, this should documented in such a way that anyone without any prior knowledge can understand the logistics of your DR plan.
We can help set this up.
Summary
So in summary we suggest all businesses large or small should put the time required to enact a working and tested DR plan that covers all vital systems and data that your business needs. With the pandemic still ongoing now more than ever being resilient and working efficiently is key to survival.
If you would like more information on how we can help please get in touch or find us on Social Media via the links on our website