ENSURING AVAILIBILITY
HIGH AVAILABILITY:
High availability in IT infrastructure refers to the ability of a system or network to
remain operational and accessible for a long period of time without any
downtime or interruptions.
It ensures that services and applications are always available to users, even in
the event of hardware failures, software issues, or other disruptions.
ENSURING HIGH AVAILIBILITY:
Ensuring high availability in IT infrastructure involves implementing various strategies and
technologies to minimize downtime and maximize system uptime.
Here are a few key steps to achieve high availability:
• Monitoring and proactive maintenance: Regularly monitoring system health, performance,
and potential issues allows for proactive maintenance and timely resolution of any problems
before they escalate.
• Load balancing: Distributing network traffic across multiple servers or resources helps
prevent overloading and ensures that services remain available even during peak usage
periods.
• Data backup and replication: Regularly backing up critical data and replicating it to offsite
locations or secondary systems ensures data availability and recovery in case of data loss or
system failures.
• Regular testing and updates: Performing regular testing of systems, applications, and
disaster recovery plans helps identify vulnerabilities and ensures that updates and patches
are applied in a timely manner.
REDUNDANCY:
Redundancy, in the context of IT infrastructure, refers to the duplication of
critical components or systems to ensure that there are backup options
available in case of failure. By implementing redundancy strategies, businesses
can minimize the impact of potential disruptions and maintain the continuity of
their operations.
STRATEGIES:
Backup System:
One of the most common redundancy strategies is the use of backup systems.
This involves creating duplicate copies of important data and storing them in
separate physical or virtual locations.
By doing so, businesses can ensure that even if one system fails, they can
quickly switch to the backup system and continue their operations without
significant interruptions.
Backup systems can be implemented at various levels, including individual
servers, storage devices, and even entire data centers.
STRATEGIES:
Power Supplies:
Another redundancy strategy is the use of redundant power supplies. Power
outages can be a major cause of IT infrastructure failures, leading to data loss
and downtime. To mitigate this risk, organizations can install redundant power
supplies, such as uninterruptible power supply (UPS) units or backup
generators.
These redundant power sources can automatically kick in when the primary
power source fails, providing a seamless transition and ensuring uninterrupted
power supply to critical IT systems
STRATEGIES:
Network Paths:
Redundancy can also implement at the network level. This involves creating
redundant network paths and connections to ensure that if one path or
connection fails, there are alternative routes available for data transmission.
Redundant network configurations can be achieved through the use of
technologies like load balancing, where network traffic is distributed across
multiple paths, or by implementing redundant network switches and routers.
STRATEGIES:
Hardware Components:
Redundancy can also be applied to hardware components. For example,
organizations can use redundant servers, where multiple servers are configured
to work together and share the workload. If one server fails, the others can
seamlessly take over, ensuring uninterrupted service.
Redundant storage devices, such as RAID (Redundant Array of Independent
Disks) systems, can be used to protect against data loss in case of disk failures.
DISASTER RECOVERY :
Disaster recovery (DR) consists of IT technologies and best practices designed
to prevent or minimize data loss and business disruption resulting from
catastrophic events—everything from equipment failures and localized power
outages to cyberattacks, civil emergencies, criminal or military attacks and
natural disasters.
DISASTER RECOVERY PLANNING:
Disaster recovery planning involves strategizing, planning, deploying
appropriate technology, and continuous testing. Maintaining backups of your
data is a critical component of disaster recovery planning, but a backup and
recovery process alone does not constitute a full disaster recovery plan.
PLANNING STEPS:
• Business impact analysis:
The creation of a comprehensive disaster recovery plan begins with business
impact analysis. When performing this analysis, you’ll create a series of detailed
disaster scenarios that can then be used to predict the size and scope of the
losses you’d incur if certain business processes were disrupted. What if your
customer service call center was destroyed by fire, for instance? Or an
earthquake struck your headquarters?
PLANNING STEPS:
• Risk analysis:
Assessing the likelihood and potential consequences of the risks your business
faces is also an essential component of disaster recovery planning. As
cyberattacks and ransomware become more prevalent, it’s critical to understand
the general cybersecurity risks that all enterprises confront today as well as the
risks that are specific to your industry and geographical location.
PLANNING STEPS:
• Prioritizing Applications:
Not all workloads are equally critical to your business’s ability to maintain
operations, and downtime is far more tolerable for some applications than it is
for others. Separate your systems and applications into three tiers, depending
on how long you could stand to have them be down and how serious the
consequences of data loss would be.
Mission-critical: Applications whose functioning is essential to your business’s survival.
Important: Applications for which you could tolerate relatively short periods of downtime.
Non-essential: Applications you could temporarily replace with manual processes or do without.
PLANNING STEPS:
• Documenting dependencies:
The next step in disaster recovery planning is creating a complete inventory of
your hardware and software assets. It’s essential to understand critical
application interdependencies at this stage. If one software application goes
down, which others will be affected?
PLANNING STEPS:
• Regulatory compliance issues:
All disaster recovery software and solutions that your enterprise have
established must satisfy any data protection and security requirements that
you’re mandated to adhere to. This means that all data backup and failover
systems must be designed to meet the same standards for ensuring data
confidentiality and integrity as your primary systems.
PLANNING STEPS:
• Choosing technologies:
Backups serve as the foundation upon which any solid disaster recovery plan is
built. In the past, most enterprises relied on tape and spinning disks (HDD) for
backups, maintaining multiple copies of their data and storing at least one at an
offsite location.
PLANNING STEPS:
• Continuous testing and review:
Simply put, if your disaster recovery plan has not been tested, it cannot be
relied upon. All employees with relevant responsibilities should participate in the
disaster recovery test exercise, which may include maintaining operations from
the failover site for a period of time.
