ISM Assignment 3

Shubham Mallick
2185044

1. Provide examples of planned and unplanned downtime in

the context of data centre operations.
Ans- Planned downtime is a period where the IT department
intentionally takes down the network to complete scheduled
maintenance and upgrades. While the network is not useable at this
time, planned downtime is essential to ensure that the network functions
optimally in the long term.

Unplanned downtime is another story. This is an unexpected network

outage that can occur at any time due to unforeseen system failures.
Unplanned downtime can occur as a result of many different failures,
including hardware and software malfunctions, operator mistakes or
even cyberattacks. This is the costliest type of downtime, as it can occur
during business hours.

2. How does clustering help to minimize RTO?

Ans- Cluster: A group of servers and other necessary resources, coupled
to operate as a single system. Clusters can ensure high availability and
load balancing. Typically, in failover clusters, one server runs an
application and updates
the data, and another server is kept redundant to take over completely,
as required. In more sophisticated clusters, multiple servers may access
data, and typically one server performs coordination. RTOs and the
recovery strategies to ensure data availability are:

3. Explain RTP and RPO with diagrammatic representation.

Ans - Recovery-Point Objective (RPO): This is the point in time to
which systems and data must be recovered after an outage. It defines the
amount of data loss that a business can endure. A large RPO signifies
high tolerance to information loss in a business. Based on the RPO,
organizations plan for the minimum frequency with which a backup or
replica must be made.
Recovery-Time Objective (RTO): The time within which systems,
applications, or functions must be recovered after an outage. It defines
the amount of downtime that a business can endure and survive.
Businesses can optimize disaster recovery plans after defining the RTO
for a given data centre or network.

4. Elaborate Business Continuity (BC) Planning Lifecycle.

Ans – Business continuity (BC) is an integrated and enterprise-wide
process that includes all activities. BC entails preparing for, responding
to, and recovering from a system outage that adversely affects business
operations. It involves proactive measures, such as business impact
analysis and risk assessments, data protection, and security, and reactive
countermeasures, such as disaster recovery and restart, to be invoked in
the event of a failure.
Basically, the business continuity management lifecycle has six phases to
it:

Step 1: Since BCM is crucial, it should have the top management's nod.
Therefore, the first step in any business continuity management lifecycle
is to get the top management's commitment.
Step 2: The next step in the business continuity management lifecycle is
to communicate this policy to all key stakeholders including vendors and
outsourced parties.
Step 3: Identify a BCM sponsor who has the authority to implement
business continuity management as per the policy. He can have a team
and formulate a framework which covers activities identified under the
BCM software's scope.
Step 4: The next step to follow in the business continuity management
lifecycle is to analyse the basic impact to identify critical functions under
the scope of BCM and carry out a risk assessment of those critical
functions.
Step 5: After implementing all the above plans, create an exercise
program to cover different plans in line with the plans' objectives, review
the plans, and ascertain their limitations or gaps.
Step 6: The next step in the business continuity management lifecycle is
to carry out the plan-do-check-act cycle. This includes managing the
program through periodic management review, internal audits and self-
assessments; embedding the BCM culture; carrying out exercises; and
carrying out preventive and corrective actions to show continual
improvement

5. Explain any 3 Back up topologies.

Ans- Three basic topologies are used in a backup environment: direct
attached backup, LAN based backup, and SAN based backup.

i) In a direct-attached backup, a backup device is attached directly to

the client. Only the metadata is sent to the backup server through the
LAN. This configuration frees the LAN from backup traffic.

ii) In LAN-based backup, all servers are connected to the LAN and all
storage devices are directly attached to the storage node. The data to be
backed up is transferred from the backup client (source), to the backup
device (destination) over the LAN, which may affect network
performance. Streaming across the LAN also affects network
performance of all systems connected to the same segment as the backup
server.

iii) The SAN-based backup is also known as the LAN-free backup. The
SAN-based backup topology is the most appropriate solution when a
backup device needs to be shared among the clients. In this case the
backup device and clients are attached to the SAN.

6. Discuss the security concerns in backup environment.

Ans- Security concerns in backup environment are:-
i) Ignoring Encryption and Making Unencrypted Backups
There have been a number of high-profile data breaches in recent
years. These should serve as a warning for your business. The cloud is
only as secure as you make it. If you do not encrypt your data and control
access through two-factor authentication, your backups are at risk

ii) Failing to Test and Monitor Backups

The cloud takes away a great deal of overhead – but that doesn’t mean
you can forget about your system completely and expect everything to
run like clockwork. It is imperative that you monitor your cloud for
potential problems, and regularly test backups to ensure all is still
working as intended.

iii) Not Planning for Disaster Situations and Disaster Recovery

Cloud backups can be a great service and protect data in a lot of ways.
But having a cloud backup system doesn’t mean that you can forget
about potential pitfalls in disaster situations.

iv) Focusing Only on Your Files

If you are only backing up files and certain important folders, you are
missing out on some vital data that helps reduce the damage of a
compromise.
Make sure to maintain backups of software, databases, and even logs, in
addition to your important files. Any data that you are missing from a
backup can potentially come back to haunt you. There may be a small
missing ingredient from your backup that leaves an important
configuration missing and can lead to reworking whole applications.