Business Continuity

The technology services Infoplex offer provide the ideal solutions for business continuity for most organizations. As such we have a lot of experience in working through BCP planning from start to finish. A Business Continuity Plan should first consider the elements that make up your business and how these fit together. Next, look at the criticality of these component parts and what happens to your business should any of the components identified be unavailable for different lengths of time. It needs to be stressed that only after the business requirements have been identified should technology enter into the process. After this, analysis into the current technology platforms can begin and solutions that need to be in place, to ensure your business keeps ticking, can be explored. This way you concentrate your investments on solutions based on the business risk and not just the latest technologies.

Some of the solutions available from Infoplex for a comprehensive Business Continuity Plan include:

• Physical Server Protection - The ‘service’ hosted on a physical server can be protected through the use of Physical to Image (P2I) replication. The Physical Server – its operating system, application configuration and data is copied from the server periodically and written to an Image hosted on an image server within the same production data centre. This acts as a snapshot or point-in-time copy of the Physical server. In the event of a configuration error or other state change on the server, the image can be copied back to the same physical server – restoring the service. This is performed off-line and does not require a traditional file system restore (e.g. from backup tape).
• Virtual Server Protection - Virtual Servers can be protected through point-in-time copies of all operating system configuration, data and application configuration. This is accomplished through performing a snapshot of the Virtual Server. Up to 32 snapshots can be made of any particular server (with the additional cost being extra storage). A snapshot would be taken prior to a system modification (e.g. patching) to ensure that a complete point-in-time copy of the server has been taken. In the event that the system modification is not successful the system can be rolled back to the snapshot.
• Boot from SAN -Provides a snapshot or point-in-time copy of a physical server. When a Physical server boots from SAN its operating system, application and data resides on the SAN as opposed to local disk residing within the server. Therefore as the server’s state exists in the SAN’s disk a snapshot can be made to perform a point in time copy of the operating system, application and data.
• SAN Disaster Recovery - Data held on Infoplex’ Storage Area Network can be replicated as part of a Physical or Virtual Server DR configuration. However there are some cases where the ‘data’ is important but not the service itself (during a DR scenario). In this way a Customer may select to have a logical disk replicated to protect the data but not require an end-point to access the data (a Physical or Virtual Server). It is important that the data is protected but not necessarily the ability to access that data during a DR scenario. Total storage size (and therefore storage charges) is effectively doubled for each logical disk that is replicated as it exists in both sites.
• NAS Disaster Recovery - Infoplex provides Network Attached Storage to customers via a CIFS Virtual Context that is integrated with the Customers Active Directory for permissions and can be available in a Disaster Recovery situation. The NAS Virtual Context in the primary facility is replicated to the NAS Virtual Context in the DR facility. In the event of a site failure the NAS service is relocated to the DR facility. The NAS Virtual Context updates the Customer’s Active Directory so that end users can continue to access the NAS even though it has logically moved to a different IP network. Through copying the physical server’s state to an image in the event of a configuration error or other state change on the server, the image can be copied back to the same physical server – restoring the service. This is performed off line and does not require a traditional file system restore (e.g. from backup tape).

Infoplex offer assistance and consultancy in BCP planning for customers of our other services and products.