Your Disaster Recovery Plan isn’t a Plan
My apologies, but someone had to tell you.
You don’t have a Disaster Recovery Plan. You have a Disaster Recovery Hope (paraphrased from a source I’ve forgotten…)
If I’m wrong (and I hope I am), its because you are in the 10% (optimistically) of companies that actually test their DR plans and document the results.
In the 18+ years I’ve been asking the following question, I’ve gotten one excellent and correct response, and one that was good, but I still poked holes in it.
“If your most important database server crashed right now, how long until you are back online?”
I get a lot of responses on this question:
- 2 days
- 30 minutes
- I don’t know
- Blank Stares (its a response…just a scary one)
If you are not testing your DR plan, you may be betting your company’s existence on a flawed premise: “Our people know what to do. We have backups.”
If your DR plan is a digital “living document” that lives on your Sharepoint server, you are already in trouble. Everyone involved needs a current, non-digital copy on their desk and at their home.
Disaster recovery is about far more than restoring databases. But, for my mostly-SQL Server audience, let me ask you this:
Can you do an emergency test restore of your most mission critical database onto identical hardware, to a point 27.5 minutes ago and have everything work as expected?
If you don’t do test restores, you are HOPING your backups are valid. If you don’t have the ability to replace critical hardware or spin up an identical VM, you are HOPING that your server or SAN never fails.
If you are running through your DR Plan regularly, with everyone ready to go and knowing their place in the process…you are HOPING the next disaster happens when everyone is available, online and up to speed. What if that disaster happens when your Sr. DBA is on vacation? Who is her backup? A Jr. DBA? A SQL Developer?
If you don’t know the answer to the “How long…” question above, you really should go find out who in your organization does. If nobody does, contact me.
If you think you have it 100% nailed…I challenge you to let me into your server room unattended.
Please share this...its important that companies revisit their plans periodically...some are so busy they forget to protect their customers and employees from a disaster.
Thanks for reading!
IT Director/Manager | Service Desk Management | Active Directory | Leadership | Budgeting | Vendor Management | Data Center Infrastructure | Networking | VMWare Virtualization | Disaster Recovery | Security
3 年Really good article Kevin! Both relevant and TRUE! I'll be keeping your name and number on hand.....not to have you be our DR Plan....but maybe to help be our DR Planner :)
Sr Customer Success Account Manager at Microsoft
6 年So True!
Over-caffeinated, Bike-riding Senior DBA #SQLServer #FractionalDBA
6 年Please share lessons you've learned from a disaster or success stories from where you survived one!
CEO at BitWise | Helping CTOs | We take complicated things and make them simple
6 年penny wise pound foolish?