Ensuring a business doesn’t lose vital systems during an incident requires an effective disaster recovery strategy. Developing that strategy requires overcoming a number of challenges:

1. Multiple underlying architectures.

Some systems needing protection are bare metal, physical servers. Others are virtual machines. Others use cloud systems, which can be either SaaS, IaaS, or PaaS.

2. Multiple operating systems and hypervisors.

Most data centers use a variety of operating systems and hypervisors, all potentially needing a different recovery solution.

3. Workloads have different requirements.

Not all workloads have the same criticality. Some need to be brought back online within minutes; others can be down for a day. Some can afford to lose the whole day’s data; others can’t afford to lose any data.

4. Complexity of managing backups and recovery.

Meeting the varying requirements of these different architectures, system software, and applications can require using multiple backup and recovery tools. This leads to a complex process that’s difficult to manage.

5. Costly backup and recovery tools.

The more tools needed and the tighter the recovery objectives, the more expensive the solution is likely to be. In addition to the tools needed, a potentially expensive secondary environment is also needed.

6. Errors during the recovery process.

Unless the recovery process is automated, it will be executed manually by staff who are most likely unfamiliar with the procedure, as it’s not a routine operation. This means the recovery process is vulnerable to errors that delay getting the systems operational again.

7. Changes in infrastructure.

DR plans are tied to the specific infrastructure and systems to be recovered. New application developments as well as system retirements mean the plans are often incomplete and out of date.

8. Difficulty testing plans.

The worst time to find out a DR plan doesn’t work is in the middle of a disaster, but effectively testing plans is burdensome and difficult.

9. Not all vital data is under your control.

Data used in a SaaS product isn’t under your control and you can’t apply your own protection strategy. Agreements with SaaS vendors may not guarantee specific levels of recovery.

Make sure your DR strategy meets these challenges with disaster recovery services from Prescient Solutions. Our IT consulting and managed services help businesses in the Chicago and Schaumburg area develop comprehensive, cost-effective DR solutions. Contact us to learn more about how Prescient Solutions can help you overcome your disaster recovery challenges.