Disaster Recovery

What You Will Learn In This Session . .

1. The Main Goal: Bullet-proofing Disaster Recovery Strategies

2. Remote Replication vs. Mirroring Strategies
3. Disaster Recovery and Virtualization: A New Angle
4. Integrating Mirroring and Replication into Disaster Recovery
Strategies
5. Metro SANs: Options for Remote Mirroring And Replication
6. Your Network Options: Questions to Guide You
7. The Outsourcing Alternatives: Things to Consider
Why ….?
What is an IT Disaster
• What is an IT Disaster?
• ‘Disaster’ – the unplanned interruption of normal business processes resulting from the
interruption of the IT infrastructure components used to support them.
Common Types 1 :

Power outages 28% Hurricanes 6%

Storm Damage 12% Fires 6%
Floods 10% Software Error 5%
Hardware Error 8% Power surge/spike 5%
Physical Attack 7% Earthquake 5%
1. Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (himss.org)
Business Continuity versus Disaster Recovery

• These are not the same thing!

• Business Continuity (BC): Considers the academic, research and
business functioning of the institution as a whole. Includes risk
assessment, and plans for functional units and business processes.
Potentially wider variety of scenarios to consider.
• Disaster Recovery (DR): IT activities to enable recovery to an
acceptable condition after a disaster. BC includes DR. DR requires
guidance from BC to direct priorities and set scope.
Past…Today…Future: Backup Issue
What You Will Learn In This Session . .

1. The Main Goal: Bullet-proofing Disaster Recovery Strategies

2. Remote Replication vs. Mirroring Strategies
3. Disaster Recovery and Virtualization: A New Angle
4. Integrating Mirroring and Replication into Disaster Recovery
Strategies
5. Metro SANs: Options for Remote Mirroring And Replication
6. Your Network Options: Questions to Guide You
7. The Outsourcing Alternatives: Things to Consider
Defining Terms: Remote Mirroring and Data
Replication
Checklist

• Remote Mirroring generates a mirrored image of data on two or more

disks
• Data Replication scans data periodically for changes and copies new data
to the other disk or file system on another system
• Factors to consider
• Value of data (and lost data) being backed up
• Costs for network bandwidth and software
• Your existing infrastructure
• Product features (OS, File System, Disk or Application)
Measuring Data Protection:
Point-in-Time to Synchronous
Tip

More There will be a need for

Synchronous
multiple tools to protect data

Data Semi-Synchronous
Protection Lost Transactions Line of Tolerance

Asynchronous

Point In Time

Less More
Network Bandwidth Consumed
Questions to Consider When Looking At
Remote Mirroring and Replication

• What are you protecting? (applications, transactions, files, disks)

• What level of protection do you need?
(We’ll come back to this!)
• What are your network requirements?
• What is your expected budget for this project? Best Practice

• Is the ROI greater than acquisition costs?

• What will best fit your larger business continuity strategy?
The Luxury Sedan:
Disk-to-Disk Remote Copy
• Key advantages
• Operates at the disk level
• Can be (not always) less complex to set up and administer than host-
based approaches
• Can offer the benefit of capturing all application changes. . .
• Key Disadvantages: Costly
• Lacks transaction knowledge or what the data represents
• Can be wasteful of network bandwidth if not properly set up
• If operating in synchronous mode, can degrade application
performance
The Rising Alternative:
Block-and-File Replication
• Fundamentals
• Makes comparisons and only copies changes (at disk or file level)
• Key Advantages
• Can be less expensive
• Can be flexible to replicate all enterprise data regardless of disk system
• Copies only the most important files/data
• Many-to-one replication architectures available
• Limits amount of data transferred, reducing network load and cost
• Key Disadvantages
• Isn’t 100% availability of data

Warning
Block and File Replication Details You
need to Consider
File WAN Replication

Block WAN Replication

• Less expensive, host-based (or array-based) file

and block replication
• Specific to storage vendor, OS or file system
Database Replication

• Typically done by replicating or mirroring log files

• A number of variations:
• Continuous Mirroring: updates DBMS as changes(adds, updates, deletes) occur
• Change Data Capture: captures DBMS changes and stores them until a
predetermined replication time
• Full Copy Refresh: replicates entire DBMS copy to target systems (done to
resynchronize DBMS after outage)
• Trigger-based native DBMS is not usually appropriate for DR because of
high system and network overhead
Snapshots: The Hotshots of Backup
• Establishes a separate identifiable storage entity and run
operations against it
• Primary purpose: backup, testing, conversion and batch process
• Is dependent on OS, host and array support…
• Advantage: it takes up less network bandwidth than mirroring
• Disadvantage: resynchronization of data is an art
• If you do not resynchronize, you must build snapshot mirror totally
from scratch
 New Kid on the Block: Virtualization and
Disaster Recovery

• Virtualization software offers a new alternative

• Data replication (over both IP and Fibre Channel)
• Snapshot
• High Availability Fail-over
• A cost-effective approach to disaster recovery
• Key Challenges
• Recreating the virtualization system can be difficult
• Specifying file level information for replication can be difficult
• Still a relatively new technology, so test well
• Research virtualization players thoroughly
• Ask hard questions about number of customers doing this Warning
• How are issues of network performance and security handled?
 Prioritizing Data: Integrating Mirroring
or Replication to Your Strategy
Tool

Hot Site More

Remote Disk Mirroring

Data Replication

Snapshot Importance
Campus Disk Mirroring Of Data
Electronic Vaulting

Tape Onsite
Tape-Backup Offsite Less

More
Amount Of Less Recovery Time
Immediate
Data Delayed
OK, Now What? It’s The Network, Stupid

• Long-distance Remote Mirroring/Replication requires significant network

integration
• Mission: Connecting two or more islands of storage
• Could be SANs, hot sites, remote disk or tape
• Myriad of network transport choices boil down to two fundamentals (from the
POP out)
• Fibre
• IP
• Where to Start: Evaluate Network Requirements
• Ask storage vendors for requirements
• Map that to service provider bandwidth services
Specific Network Challenges for Remote
Mirroring and Replication Tip

• Enterprise network performance is many times slower than storage

performance
• Things You Could Consider
• What tools do the remote mirroring/replication vendor provide for performance on a
Metro SAN?
• Network throttling – adjusting data amounts sent over wire
• Compression – compressing data to take up less network bandwidth
• Time-stamping – marking data at time saved or accessed
• Latency isn’t your friend
• Measurable time it takes for an I/O transaction to reach destination
• Distance is a factor – especially when extending data native limit
• Storage traffic requires high bandwidth, low latency connections not typical of IP
 Metro SAN Puzzle Pieces
Headquarter
Remote Site
s Key Features

Remote
Tape Library
Primary Remote
Disk Storage Disk Storage
ATM, T3/E3, OC3+
or Fibre Optic (DWDM)

Service Provider Connectivity Services

Mirroring/Replication Software

Edge of Network Equipment (Director, Router or DWDM)

Metro SAN Network Transport
Options Key Features

Network Performance Length of Distance

Protocol
ESCON Full performance (200-M 8 km for full performance,
bits/sec. unidirectional) 50% performance @ 20 km
FICON Bi-directional channel 100 km distance limitation
protocol, runs over at
1.063 G bit/sec.
Dark Fibre Dedicated Fibre (depends 10 km without long-wave
on transport) transceivers
iSCSI, iFCP, FCIP Still in proof-of-concept Depends on applications,
stage, but promise of 1 service, connection points –
TB per hour over IP FCIP - primary for Metro
SANs
DWDM - Gigabit Requires high-speed IP Depends on applications,
(Optical) Ethernet network to connect service, connection points and
(Most common) storage islands, OC3 or < routers used (DWDM)
IP Network Options
• Private Router Backbones
• Leased, dedicated lines
• Optimized for performance (racing the sun)
• xSP VPNs
• Customer purchases edge routers and ISP provides shared
backbone
• Leverages Multiprotocol Layer Switching (MPLS) for better
Quality of Service
• Internet . . .
• Not a disaster recovery tactic I would trust
Tips To Consider When Speaking With Your
Service Provider
• Ask your xSP to provide you what their expertise is in storage services
• Consider how you could leverage your existing connectivity services to establish a
cost-effective service contract for your backup services Checklist
• Ask for a latency/network performance SLA
• Your primary xSP should have partners to assist with storage services if they don’t
• Consider leveraging storage vendor relationships to find service providers
that can do integration
• Do or have done a network analysis to determine requirements for your
backup services
• Determine if outsourcing is an option
Metro SAN Challenges: Things You Need
to Ask about IP

• Latency and Bandwidth

Checklist

• Security
• Complexity
• Quality of Service (QoS)
• Dropped Packets
• Manageability
• NOTE: IP storage switch vendors are trying to solve these things – so
gauge them based on this
Does Outsourcing Make Sense?
Best Practice

• Determine if outsourcing disaster recovery services for Data

Mirroring and Replication services
• Do I have the skills, personnel and infrastructure?
• Outsourcing provides a number of advantages
• Enables enterprise to focus on core competence
• Speeds IT’s ability to maintain and return to business operations
• Leverages expertise and more plentiful specialized resources
• Offers mirrored solutions for immediate recovery
• Provides problem resolution expertise that speeds delivery of services
related to backup, security and performance monitoring
• Delivers professional services to assist in design of a customized business
continuity plan
Ask for Help From a Professional . . .

• This is a complex proposition

• Storage vendors will assist with best backup technologies
• Service Providers will offer options for services
• Integrators with storage and networking practices are best
candidates for additional implementation
• they are still rare in the world
Evaluate ROI for Disaster Recovery
• Come up with a ROI calculation for your data protection Best Practice

strategy
• Guidelines to remember
• Calculated over three-year term
• The higher the ROI, the more favorable the project
• TCO vs. ROI – ROI wins out
• Key factors to be included in ROI analysis
• Costs: downtime, personnel, assets
• Reliability: data replication, mirroring, backups
• System performance: how is systems and software utilized
• Calculate savings: improved performance, revenue, processes