Draw a time line on an X axis. In the middle, put a big red D. This is your disaster. Somewhere to the left, put a P. That is your RPO. Somwhere to the right, put a T. That is your RTO.
As the time between P and D decreases, or as the time between D and T decreases, or both, your price and complexity increase. Quickly. A propoer business impact will put a $ value to the loss of data or productivity, per system. The answers to the questions come from the business, not IT. How much $ is at risk if the carpet spec sheets are not available for 1 hour, for 2 hours .... You then factor in probability of occurance. If the spec sheet is unavailable for 4 hours means you lose one sale. That one sale is $1000 in revenue. Probability of that "event" occuring is 1x every 2 years. That means (simplistically) you should spend no more than $500/year to protect the carpet spec sheets. Again, very simplistic, and you would repeat for each system to help drive the overall requirements. I would spend a few thousand dollars with a business impact consultant first. On Tue, Apr 6, 2010 at 10:52 AM, John Aldrich <[email protected]>wrote: > Ah. Looked up the two terms. No, I have not really done an “in-depth” > formal investigation of those, but I would say that I really don’t want to > lose ANY of the data, period. A recovery time of a few hours should be > acceptable, but I’d certainly like to keep it under 1 business day. After > that, people are going to start getting impatient, I believe, for access to > certain business-related files (spec sheets for carpet, etc.) As previously > mentioned, I also want to have our email store on the storage appliance, and > while I’m sure our ISP would be more than happy to act as the backup email > host, it would be better if we didn’t have to keep our email on their > servers any longer than necessary. In addition, if I back up user’s desktops > to the network (most likely using folder redirection) they might get a bit > “antsy” if they don’t have access to their files. J > > > > So, no, no FORMAL RTO/RPO, but I don’t really want to lose **any** data > and I want to restore functionality as soon as humanly possible. I don’t > want to take a week or more to get a new SAN installed if I can possibly > help it. That’s too long. I would say up to 24 hours (including weekends, if > necessary, but preferably not!) would be the maximum “down time.” Most of > our operations run on the AS/400, so there would be little business-critical > data on the Windows side of things, but a lot of business-IMPORTANT > information that would be hard to replace. > > > > [image: John-Aldrich][image: Tile-Tools] > > > > *From:* Kevin Lundy [mailto:[email protected]] > *Sent:* Tuesday, April 06, 2010 10:37 AM > > *To:* NT System Admin Issues > *Subject:* Re: SAN question > > > > John - have you completed a business impact analysis? Derived RTO and > RPO? I think that will go a long way towards helping define technical > options as well as the finances. > > > > To try to design the technology first, in my opinion, is putting the > proverbial horse before the cart. > > > > Kevin > > On Tue, Apr 6, 2010 at 10:28 AM, John Aldrich < > [email protected]> wrote: > > No, I have not narrowed it down. I initially hoped to get the project done > this year, but the economic downturn has hurt our cash flow such that we are > in a “holding pattern” on any “discretionary” spending and the SAN project > certainly falls into that category. > > > > You bring up a good point about what happens if you only have one SAN and > it goes down. That’s one reason I was thinking about having a “D/R” SAN at a > remote location. We do have a remote location about 30 minutes away. Another > option would be to co-lo the D/R SAN with someone. I just got off the phone > with a Global Crossing rep who wanted to talk to me about things they could > do for me, especially in the way of conferencing, etc. We got to talking > about the IT priorities for the next couple years and I mentioned the SAN > project and asked if they provided online backup services. She said that the > only thing they could offer would be co-lo space and that got me to thinking > that maybe that might be the best of both worlds… co-lo the D/R SAN at a > professional co-lo facility. > > > > [image: John-Aldrich][image: Tile-Tools] > > > > *From:* Martin Blackstone [mailto:[email protected]] > *Sent:* Tuesday, April 06, 2010 10:14 AM > *To:* NT System Admin Issues > *Subject:* RE: SAN question > > > > If you are just backing up to tape and your SAN goes down, where will you > restore too? Do you have a spare disk pool to use? > > If it was “me”, I would be looking at a SAN solution that offers its own > proven DR solution. > > Since I only know NetApp, they have a tool called SnapMirror that is built > into the OS. You pay for the license and plug in the serial. > > Then setup your DR targets and let it rip. If your primary SAN goes down, > you can do some clicks and bring the system online with all your data ready > to access. > > > > But you seem to be talking about a lot of things you want. You want DR, you > want clustering. If you cluster, maybe you only need to backup to tape. > Unless you want to buy a clustered SAN and a DR SAN. Of course if you are > going to have a DR SAN, I assume you have a DR location? > > I mean if the building burns to the ground do you have a location with the > resources needed to keep the company running? Not just hold the data? > > > > Have you narrowed this down to 3 vendors yet? > > > > *From:* John Aldrich [mailto:[email protected]] > *Sent:* Tuesday, April 06, 2010 6:52 AM > *To:* NT System Admin Issues > *Subject:* SAN question > > > > Guys, I’m still working on my storage needs, as the project I’ve been > working on probably won’t get approved until early next year at the > earliest. I was talking to a D/R consultant recommended by one of the folks > on this list. Unfortunately, he does not work with SMB clients, only large > clients such as Coca Cola, etc. > > > > I had been thinking of getting two SANs and having one replicate to the > other for D/R purposes. Most of our operations run off the AS/400 so that > would not be much affected (except if we are able to some how back up to the > SAN, which is unlikely with our current AS/400, due to disk space > limitations on the 400) one way or the other by the SAN project. The > aforementioned consultant suggested that we look into getting just one SAN > and a tape backup for it or online backup service instead of doing two SANs. > Most of the data on the Windows side of things would be hard to replace if > it died, so while it’s not “critical” to our operations, it’s still highly > important. > > > > What do you guys think of that suggestion? Would any of you guys do > something like that? Why or why not? > > Also, anyone know any D/R consultants in the North Georgia area who work > with SMB clients? > > > > [image: John-Aldrich][image: Tile-Tools] > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
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