PCA's Hudson Valley computer technology support blog discusses how technology impacts businesses, business owners and their support staff. New articles are posted every Tuesday.

Recovering from a Major Crash

19 May, 2009 18:34

When a server can't be repaired and must instead be replaced, it can be a major problem for an unprepared business.  Taking the time to put in place a business continuity plan can save a business countless hours in lost productivity while a new server is shipped, the software installed, and data are recovered from backup drives or the old server itself.
Causes of major server crashes

The phrase “major server crash” suggests that something has gone wrong with the computer itself, but from a business standpoint it's no different if it was the hard drive or an office fire that causes the problem.  Any situation that damages a server so seriously that it can't be repaired will have the same effect upon a business, and those situations run the gamut from hardware problems (like disk failure) to large scale disasters (such as Hurricane Katrina).

In extreme situations such as Hurricane Katrina, a business owner may not even be able to continue working in the same location, much less on the same server.  Even when the disaster is a small one, such as a building fire, any backup tapes that were forgotten in the office were probably destroyed with the server itself.

Replacing a server
A new server may be overnighted if an appropriate model is in stock, but work to replace it may be delayed longer if an appropriate replacement isn't immediately available.  Steps that must be taken include:

  • Installing all the necessary software – if the licensed copies were destroyed, replacements must be obtained.
  • Reconfiguring all the business computers to recognize the new server.
  • Recovering the business data, either from a backup drive or from the old server's hard drive, if it's available.  Recovery from a damaged hard drive is a tricky business, and predicting how much information will be recovered is all but impossible ahead of time.
Depending on the availability of software and the completeness of backup data, those two steps can take from several hours to days.

The fifteen-minute recovery plan
In the case of a server meltdown in the office due to a problem in the machine, a system like Remote Vault Pro Enterprise can provide the same quick response as it would for a minor server crash.  In the event of a larger disaster, the remote backup would be used to load onto a new server everything that the business had on its old one.  All the files that were backed up (from as little as fifteen minutes before the problem occurred) would be in the same locations, and the new server would already have all necessary software installed and ready to go.

It's never pleasant to think about worst-case scenarios, but a commercial insurance agent would agree that thinking about the worst before it happens makes it much more bearable if it ever does.

Technology for Businesses | Next | Previous | Trackbacks (0)