Tips

Tips

• Microsoft SharePoint disaster recovery strategies

  In planning for disaster recovery with Microsoft SharePoint, the technologies that work best with data protection are snapshots, replication, and virtualization.  Continue Reading

• Data backup and recovery tips for disaster recovery purposes

  Use tiered storage and both block-level and database replication for successful data recovery and business continuity.  Continue Reading

• Network access during the disaster recovery operations process

  Just as a working network is absolutely essential for normal business operations, the same is true during disaster recovery (DR) operations.  Continue Reading

• Data center and IT systems availability in disaster recovery planning

  Your IT Infrastructure is only as redundant and available as the data center that supports it.  Continue Reading

• Collocation data center tips for disaster recovery and business continuity professionals

  Learn how collocation data centers can play an important role in disaster recovery and business continuity planning in this tip.  Continue Reading

• Top server virtualization myths in disaster recovery and business continuity

  There's a lot of hype surrounding server virtualization, which is a popular topic in business continuity and disaster recovery. Here's a look at the top server virtualization myths.  Continue Reading

• A sample disaster recovery network checklist procedure

  Because the goals of disaster recovery are time sensitive and critical, checklists make an ideal tool when faced with a situation where those plans get called into service.  Continue Reading

• Properly sizing your uninterruptible power supply for disaster recovery purposes

  If you ever had to try to figure out how big a UPS you need to provide temporary power for your IT equipment, you may have many questions; this tip sheds some light on the subject.  Continue Reading

• Server virtualization strategies for disaster recovery

  Remote replication on virtual machines adds up to a disaster recovery plan that can really work.  Continue Reading

• Disaster recovery strategies: Eight tips for better DR planning

  Achieving more reliable disaster recovery is still a challenge for most organizations. Learn eight tips for better DR planning in this tip.  Continue Reading

• Best practices to help avoid and recover from security disasters

  Learn about the biggest security issues companies deal with today, how to avoid them, and how to recover from these types of disasters.  Continue Reading

• Change management in disaster recovery and business continuity planning

  Change management is an important process for business continuity and disaster recovery planning for several reasons. Learn about change management best practices and its role in BC/DR planning.  Continue Reading

• Using data classification tools to aid in disaster recovery planning

  Some companies are turning to data classification tools to determine what needs to be included in their disaster recovery plan.  Continue Reading

• Disk array-based data replication: The pros and cons

  Disk array-based data replication often seems like the simplest replication method with the least management overhead. Learn if it's right for your disaster recovery purposes.  Continue Reading

• Data replication options for disaster recovery

  Choosing the right data replication option for disaster recovery can be tricky. Here's a look at the replication options available today.  Continue Reading

• Data replication tools for disaster recovery

  For companies whose recovery time objective (RTO) and recovery point objective (RPO) for business-critical applications is a few minutes, data replication tools represent an efficient strategy for disaster recovery (DR).  Continue Reading

• Data backup strategies simplify remote disaster recovery

  New backup and accelerator technologies are making remote disaster recovery (DR) and business continuity (BC) faster than ever. Learn more about implementing a cost-effective formal disk-based backup for disaster recovery.  Continue Reading

• The economic benefits of a hot site disaster recovery investment

  A vendor-hosted hot site for disaster recovery purposes is an expense that may be better managed via an internal hot site. Learn more about the economic benefits of a hot site disaster recovery investment.  Continue Reading

• Disaster recovery team planning: Guidelines on DR roles and training

  With the amount of standards surrounding business continuity (BC) and disaster recovery (DR), the roles personnel play in planning need to be established. Learn guidelines for establishing disaster recovery roles and training.  Continue Reading

• IBM Tivoli Storage Manager Disaster Recovery Manager best practices

  Learn about IBM Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM) Disaster Recovery Manager and how to set it up to automate disaster recovery and reduce the complexity of media management.  Continue Reading

• The swine flu outbreak: Business continuity and disaster recovery planning for a pandemic

  This article looks at how swine flu may impact your organization and offers practical advice on how to mitigate the impact on your organization.  Continue Reading

• Choosing a data replication solution for disaster recovery

  Data replication has seen continuous and increasing adoption as a means of data protection since it first emerged. Learn how data replication can also be an effective part of disaster recovery and operational backups.  Continue Reading

• NFPA 1600 vs. BS 25999: Which is right for your business continuity program?

  The amount of business continuity standards has been growing rapidly in recent years. This tip discusses the NFPA 1600 and BS 25999 standards to help you determine which is best for your business.  Continue Reading

• Tape library trends for disaster recovery

  For disaster recovery, no data center should be without a tape library system to protect critical and archived data. Learn more about cost-effectively storing and recovering critical data with a tape library following a disaster.  Continue Reading

• Risk management for disaster recovery planning

  Disaster recovery (DR) planning is typically driven by risk management. This tip focuses on mitigating some of the risks associated with data and storage.  Continue Reading

• Disaster recovery and failback: Five tips

  Most of the attention in business continuity (BC) and disaster recovery (DR) focuses on what to do before and during a disaster. This article explores what you should do to restore IT operations following a disaster.  Continue Reading

• Including server virtualization in your disaster recovery plan

  This tip discusses best practices for including server virtualization in your disaster recovery (DR) plan based on the hypervisor in use, the IT infrastructure in place and the required recovery time objective (RTO) and recovery point objective (RPO...  Continue Reading

• Best practices for selecting a disaster recovery facility

  This tip discusses best practices for selecting a disaster recovery (DR) facility and will help you determine if an in-house DR facility, a collocation facility or a managed collocation space is best for your business.  Continue Reading

• Top disaster recovery and business continuity planning tips for SMBs

  Learn about disaster recovery (DR) testing for SMBs, how to create a DR plan, and business continuity basics for SMBs in our collection of the best DR and BC tips for SMBs.  Continue Reading

• Using a tabletop exercise for disaster recovery planning

  A tabletop disaster recovery (DR) exercise provides a practical check list of procedures to follow during a disaster. Learn about the critical procedures and planning documents needed to ensure every disaster scenario has been covered in your ...  Continue Reading

• Including employees in your disaster recovery plan

  To really ensure business continuity, organizations need to protect and support employees while continuing to manage the business. This tip examines key issues that are affecting employees in business continuity and disaster recovery situations.  Continue Reading

• Disaster recovery planning for both internal threats and external threats

  Both internal threats and external threats can wreak havoc to even the best disaster recovery plan. Read important tips about why your disaster recovery plan needs to go deeper than just a business impact analysis.  Continue Reading

• Using business continuity templates for disaster recovery

  Formulating business continuity (BC) and disaster recovery (DR) plans requires a significant amount of time and effort. This tip explores how document templates can guide you through the disaster recovery planning process by providing ready-made ...  Continue Reading

• Top disaster recovery tips for protecting your VoIP systems

  Voice over IP (VoIP) technology is the principal technology for supporting converged or unified communications. This tip discusses how converging voice and data in an all-IP environment gives businesses cost-effective and flexible solutions that ...  Continue Reading

• Disaster recovery planning for mobile phone users

  Any disaster recovery plan that includes cell phone support must restore text messaging capabilities as well as email to text and text to email linking mechanisms. This tip discusses best practices for including mobile phones in your disaster ...  Continue Reading

• Business continuity in the finance and healthcare sectors

  Despite operational differences in financial and healthcare organizations, the need for business continuity is strong in both. This tip discusses how the business continuity and disaster recovery lessons learned in these sectors can be leveraged in ...  Continue Reading

• SMBs are adding virtualization to aid in disaster recovery planning

  Economic pressures and heightened security issues are fueling new interest in virtualization for disaster recovery. In this tip, Garry Kranz looks at how SMBs are adding virtualization to aid in disaster recovery planning.  Continue Reading

• What you need in a disaster recovery (DR) plan

  Recent reports indicate that as many as half of all SMBs lack a business continuity (BC) or disaster recovery (DR) plan. This tip provides a list of items that companies often discover missing in their disaster recovery plans, policies, procedures ...  Continue Reading

• Disaster recovery planning trends and technologies for 2009

  Disaster recovery (DR) planning remains high on the priority list for many IT and storage managers in the new year. This tip highlights some of the key technologies that will help support IT recovery in 2009.  Continue Reading

• Hot trends in business continuity and disaster recovery technologies

  As companies look to do more while consuming fewer resources, disaster recovery (DR) and business continuity (BC) technologies provide more important protection against business disruption. Here's a look at five hot DR/BC technology trends in 2009.  Continue Reading

• How business continuity/disaster recovery certifications can help your career

  For those of you who are experienced in business continuity (BC) and disaster recovery (DR), a professional certification can be quite useful. If you are not already certified, this tip explores several ways to complete a certification program.  Continue Reading

• How to have a successful disaster recovery plan

  Though testing a disaster recovery or business continuity plan is far different from a real disaster, it is the only way to determine its validity. This tip provides some helpful testing steps to ensure the success of your disaster recovery plan.  Continue Reading

• Top reasons why disaster recovery tests fail

  Too many disaster recovery (DR) plans end up being a documentation exercise and never rise above the day-to-day priorities of the business. This tip explores the top reasons why disaster recovery tests fail and how you can prevent these problems.  Continue Reading

• Evaluating communication systems for disaster recovery

  In a disaster, there is no substitute for instant, reliable communications with those who can help. This tip provides a checklist of considerations for evaluating commercial outbound communication systems.  Continue Reading

• Disaster recovery planning strategies for email

  Email has become a mission-critical application. Loss of email access can result in lost revenue opportunities, missed contractual obligations and reduced employee productivity. This tip discusses best practices for ensuring email continuity.  Continue Reading

• Conducting a risk assessment for SMBs

  When developing a disaster recovery (DR) plan, conducting a business impact analyis (BIA) is how we determine the potential impact of a disaster on the business. In this tip, Pierre Dorion discusses the risk assessment process.  Continue Reading

• Disaster recovery sites: How to choose the correct location

  There are no clear standards for choosing a disaster recovery (DR) site. So how do you determine the appropriate level of geographic diversity? This tip breaks down how to choose the correct location for your DR site.  Continue Reading

• Business continuity planning on a shoestring budget

  Upgrading DR capabilities is now a major priority for IT decision makers in small to midsized businesses (SMBs). In this tip, Garry Kranz discusses how your business can do business continuity (BC) planning on a constrained budget.  Continue Reading

• Top disaster recovery tips of 2008

  The importance of effective disaster recovery (DR) in storage, networking, data center management and data security has never been more evident. For your convenience, we've collected our top 10 DR tips from this past year.  Continue Reading

• A sampling of disaster recovery/business continuity providers: Outsourcing DR

  When it comes to planning a DR or business continuity (BC) implementation, some outside help is always a good idea. But what if you've decided to take the turnkey route? This tip provides a sampling of DR service providers for DR and BC turnkey ...  Continue Reading

• Conducting a business impact analysis for SMBs

  A business impact analysis (BIA) can be the most daunting task in business continuity planning and its complexity sometimes overshadow its value to SMBs. This tip offers a simplified approach by focusing on the essential elements of a BIA.  Continue Reading

• How to create a Windows disaster recovery plan

  When disaster strikes, or site outages occur, there's absolutely no substitute for a carefully crafted, well-orchestrated and thoroughly tested disaster recovery (DR) or business continuity plan. The following list is a helpful reminder of the key ...  Continue Reading

• Outsourcing data storage considerations for SMBs

  Outsourcing data storage and backups is an effective way for small to midsized businesses (SMBs) to capitalize on IT without making the investment themselves. This tutorial provides a list for small to midsized businesses (SMBs) to consider when ...  Continue Reading

• How to create a business impact analysis for disaster recovery in 10 easy steps

  A business impact analysis (BIA) is crucial to a disaster recovery (DR) plan. This tip will identify the processes, systems and functions that are critical to a DR plan and help you allocate resources to ensure operational continuity during ...  Continue Reading

• Strategies for locating a recovery site

  Locating a disaster recovery (DR) site requires careful preparation and research. In this tip, Paul Kirvan discusses several factors that must be addressed upfront when considering the option of an alternate recovery site.  Continue Reading

• Communication in the workplace during a disaster

  Effective communication can be crucial to a disaster recovery (DR) plan. In this tip, Leo A. Wrobel and Sharon M. Wrobel discuss best practices for ensuring effective communication with employees in the event of a disaster.  Continue Reading

• Conducting a disaster recovery test for SMBs

  Small to midsized businesses (SMBs) that invest funds and efforts in developing a disaster recovery (DR) plan, must ensure they perform proper testing. In this tip, Pierre Dorion discusses exactly what a DR test needs to include for ensuring success...  Continue Reading

• Using WAFS appliances and WAN optimizers to enhance an IT recovery strategy

  To enhance a disaster recovery (DR) strategy, IT pros may want to consider the solutions they already have in place for accelerating network performance. In this tip, Kathleen Lucey discusses how using WAFS appliances and WAN optimizers can enhance ...  Continue Reading

• Five questions to ask disaster recovery service providers

  For many companies, disaster recovery (DR) and business continuity (BC) planning are rushed reactions to a disaster. Proactive DR and BC support can be established with relatively little time investment by employing DR outsourcing services. This tip...  Continue Reading

• Disaster recovery site options

  When planning, setting up and operating a disaster recovery (DR) plan, having alternate sites for IT operations is critical. In this tip, Ed Tittel discusses the specific features, functions and costs of hot, warm, cold and mobile sites.  Continue Reading

• E-vaulting can be the better solution

  While backup of electronic data is a critical part of the disaster recovery (DR) equation, more attention is often placed on the backup piece than the recovery piece. In this tip, Kathleen Lucey of Montague Risk Management discusses how e-vaulting ...  Continue Reading

• Ten things you must have in your disaster recovery plan

  While disaster recovery (DR) plans are made to be followed, the recovery team must be given the flexibility to deviate from the plan's tasks while still following recovery objectives. In this piece, Ken Koch discusses ten tips for ensuring the ...  Continue Reading

• Ten questions to ask your hot site provider

  A hot site is an active IT operation that copies, mirrors or replicates a primary IT operation at another site. This tip provides a list of questions that must be addressed to ensure you can meet your requirements for resuming normal IT activity and...  Continue Reading

• Achieving effective change management with a disaster recovery (DR) plan

  How can your organization get a handle on change management as it relates to disaster recovery (DR)? In this tip, Kevin Beaver discusses how you can please IT auditors and show management that their DR money is being well spent by leveraging ...  Continue Reading

• How to create a corporate disaster recovery policy

  For the dedicated technologist, disaster recovery (DR) planning can be fun. However, the temptation to plunge into this pool of excitement without planning is often overwhelming. Resist the temptation. This tip discusses how establishing a corporate...  Continue Reading

• How to establish a recovery time objective (RTO) for SMBs

  What does recovery time objective (RTO) exactly mean? The RTO is the specific amount of time before a business is negatively impacted by the interruption of a system or application supporting critical business processes. In this tip, Pierre Dorion ...  Continue Reading

• RAID levels and application suitability, Part one

  With disk protection for business data, one size does not fit all. Applications and the various categories of data within a given application require different levels of protection. This tip discusses the individual types, or levels of RAID, and how...  Continue Reading

• Seven steps for outsourcing data storage for SMBs

  Although hard drives keep getting higher in capacity and lower in price, storage is still increasingly challenging for SMBs. This tip discusses seven tips for outsourcing data storage to help SMBs address their capacity and management issues.  Continue Reading

• Using clusters to ensure failover

  Use clustering to share disk resources between two nodes for disaster protection.  Continue Reading

• Neglecting change control can kill a DR plan

  This tip discusses the impact of change control (or lack thereof) on disaster recovery and offers some best practice information.  Continue Reading

• How to conduct a disaster recovery test

  This tip provides an overview of the benefits of disaster recovery testing and outlines important steps you need to consider.  Continue Reading

• How to establish a recovery time objective (RTO)

  This tip will help you to understand how to establish your critical applications' recovery time objective.  Continue Reading

• The burning issue of vault storage

  Recent fires at Iron Mountain facilities have generated a lot of talk about selecting offsite storage. Learn how the right backup practices can help you sleep at night.  Continue Reading

• Risk management: Know your storage risks

  Risk management is a complex discipline and covers a broad area ranging from business and operational risk to the more focused IT risk. This tip narrows down the focus to specifically identifying data storage risk.  Continue Reading

• Using disk imaging for disaster recovery

  Imaging programs often ignore file systems and most of the other structure on disks to create copies of everything. This tip discusses how SMBs can make block-by-block copies of crtical data while ensuring effective disaster recovery.  Continue Reading

• Disaster recovery planning in a virtualized environment

  When crafting a disaster recovery strategy in a virtual server environment, storage administrators must take into account their data protection, recovery granularity and restore objectives.  Continue Reading

• Four disaster recovery strategies to consider when using data deduplication

  This tip outlines four strategies that should be taken into consideration when developing a disaster recovery plan in an environment using data deduplication.  Continue Reading

• Top 5 disaster recovery tips 2006

  Here are the top five tips of 2006, based on our readers' interest, covering such topics as vault storage, remote replication, disaster recovery for virtual tape libraries and more. Check them out now.  Continue Reading

• Network disaster recovery checklist

  This checklist, broken down into four topical areas -- general network considerations, LAN, WAN, and network infrastructure applications -- can help you focus your disaster recovery planning effort.  Continue Reading

• Better DR and BC planning

  Storage analyst Greg Schulz shares a list of items to consider and address as part of managing and maintaining a business continuance and disaster recovery plan.  Continue Reading

• Expanding the reach of disaster recovery

  While you may have a disaster recovery plan in place for your business, it may not be sound for major catastrophes, like Hurricane Katrina. Learn how to expand the limits of your disaster plan.  Continue Reading

• Prioritize your backup

  Prioritizing data to be included in backups is step one for disaster recovery planning.  Continue Reading

• How to create a business continuity plan

  In today's business environment, the only acceptable data loss is none at all. Find out how to create a business continuity plan that really works.  Continue Reading

• How to get cost-effective disaster recovery

  Picking the right combination of options is the key to cost-effective DR.  Continue Reading

• The key to backing up the right information

  If you're not backing up the correct data, then all of the safeguards you have in place will not keep your business running when disaster does strike.  Continue Reading

• How to solve removable storage problems in Windows 2000

  This tip will tell you how to identify and fix problems related to access violations in Windows 2000 Removable Storage Manager.  Continue Reading

• Should you use snapshots for end-user file recovery?

  Is end-user file recovery a godsend or a potential disaster?  Continue Reading

• How to determine acceptable data loss

  The first thing you need to do when creating a disaster recovery plan is to figure out what you can afford to lose.  Continue Reading

• Lack of DR could be hazardous to your company's health

  Everyone knows that disaster recovery planning is good for you, but getting companies to do the right thing is a challenge.  Continue Reading

• Which clustering technique is right for you?

  Which clustering technique is right for you? This article examines the first of three techniques, paired failover.  Continue Reading

• Beyond storage: 12 types of critical disaster recovery teams

  This excerpt discusses the 12 types of teams you should identify and staff ahead of time, as part of efforts to develop an overall disaster recovery plan.  Continue Reading

• Resource guide to snapshots (or point-in-time copies)

  Learn what the experts are saying about where and when to use snapshot technology as part of your backup and disaster recovery architecture.  Continue Reading

• SD2003: Disaster recovery for the 'new realities'

  Damien Walch recently shared a widening chasm between what internal customers have come to expect from IT in the event of disaster and what IT is prepared to deliver.  Continue Reading

• DR planning phase four: Third-party help

  Find out how VARs, system integrators and consultants can be a valuable resource for you when putting together your DR plan.  Continue Reading

• DR: One size doesn't fit all, but it fits most

  Bits & Bytes: The "one size fits all" DR debate continues. This time consultant Kevin Fox weighs in on how to think about establishing a DR plan should you be without one now.  Continue Reading

• DR planning phase two: Critical design tasks

  Jon Toigo digs into the second phase of his three-phase planning model: The design phase. He also explains which DR design tasks are critical for those doing DR on a budget.  Continue Reading

• DR planning phase one: Completing a preliminary risk analysis

  Bits & Bytes: In phase one of the DR planning process, you'll learn to use common sense as you tackle the tasks of project initiation and preliminary risk analysis.  Continue Reading

• DR, BC, BIA: What's the difference?

  You have to know what you're talking about when you get into the business of keeping the business going. Here is some useful info.  Continue Reading

• The never-ending story of BCP

  You cannot escape business continuity planning as a storage professional. It's like lawn maintenance. It is always with you. Find out more about how to handle it in this tip.  Continue Reading

• DR lite(er): A "workbook" approach for small companies

  DR lite(er): A "workbook" approach for small companies  Continue Reading