Disaster Recovery Strategy For Microsoft Environment

By Dr. Vas Srinivasan, VP of Marketing, Sonasoft

In business, a computer disaster equals an event that halts the normal operation of day-to-day business activities. A disastrous event can involve system malfunction, operational errors, virus attacks, acts of nature, accidents, or sabotage. The result of such a disaster is that business stops--orders cease to be placed, accounting activities freeze, data is unavailable, electronic communications halt, and the company has no access to decision-critical information. All of these events cost companies revenue and may result in unrecoverable damage.

The best way to prepare for a disaster is to avoid the disaster. Therefore, look for any potential problems you can find, and correct them. You should address those issues that you can solve and which will provide benefit. Regardless of the cause, fast and effective recovery of your IT environment is essential. You must be able to quickly implement your recovery plan--which must be tested and well documented before problems occur.

Developing a disaster recovery plan for your systems in general, and databases in particular, is tedious and time consuming. If you can automate the entire process through configurable templates, then the entire process can be completed within a short period of time, saving time and resources. Also, one should focus not only on backup, but also on recovery. When a disaster occurs, it can take hours, if not days, depending on the complexity of the situation, to have all your systems and databases up and running. Users should look for applications that will help them to recover to the point of failure, or to a point in time quickly without the need to write any script or code.