Having high availability means that your systems and applications are available upon user request or demand. High availability solutions aim to maximize uptime and minimize downtime. The standard of consistent availability has made the global Internet a mechanism for sharing information by extending the reach of database applications throughout the world. Our businesses today require data management solutions that are always available since we have become accustomed to having access to our data and information on demand, 24-hours a day. Availability is often measured in the percentage of uptime in one year. It is important to note that uptime and availability are not the same thing. For example, if there is a network failure, a system can be “up” but “not available” to the end users. The Table of Nines A common system for grading application/service uptime is...
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A disaster recovery plan is crucial for all businesses, regardless of their size. If you want your business to survive any catastrophic event, whether it be a natural disaster, building fire or company network error or malfunction, it is important to plan ahead to ensure that your business will be able to recover as quickly and as seamlessly as possible. Many businesses, especially those who have experienced a disaster without an adequate disaster recovery plan in place, are unnecessarily shelling out thousands upon thousands of dollars on their disaster recovery plans. Those who have learned the value of a disaster recovery plan the hard way know that it is far more cost effective to invest in a disaster recovery plan now than to have to deal with the chaos of a disaster head-on and unplanned for. Luckily for your small business, you don’t have to break the bank in order to...
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When it comes to something as important as IT disaster recovery , it’s no surprise that companies are willing to shell out millions of dollars to make sure their information is backed up and accessible in the case of an IT disaster. The ability for a company to seamlessly and immediately access their information after an IT disaster is an invaluable concept that many companies have trustingly invested a lot of money into. Unfortunately, most of these companies aren’t getting what they think they’re getting out of the deal. Even if they are, they are usually paying too much for their disaster recovery.   Two important factors when discussing IT Disaster Recovery are: RPO – Recovery Point Objective: This is how recently your servers were last backed up. RTO – Recovery Time Objective : This is how long it takes to get your...
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If you’re reading this blog it could very well be because you’re looking to take the steps to consult with an IT firm about your disa ster recovery needs and possible solutions for keeping your company’s sacred information safe from any failures or data loss. If that is the case, bravo! You’re on the right path to ensuring that an unexpected occurrence won’t leave your company without the hard work you’ve taken so much time and effort to create. With solutions such as VXNet Cloud Based Routing , your backed up information will be quickly and easily accessible. With a solution so seamless, you’re probably thinking that it’s going to be very expensive. Luckily, cloud-based disaster recovery solutions offer more than just improvements in technical efficiencies, they also offer the forgone expense of expensive routers and GSLB (Global Site Load Balancers) which...
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It’s a beautiful October afternoon and you’re sitting in an IT planning meeting thinking about what time you need to take your kids to football and cheerleading practice when the Director of IT informs you that he was tasked by the business to come up with a solution that will accommodate testing of new web service offerings that will require more servers and bandwidth than you currently have at your current office data center. And yes, DEV/TEST guys would like to start working on them in about 3-4 months. Your first thought is “there goes the holiday shopping and planned end-of-year vacation!”  Your second thought is “how many racks, what type of connectivity, what type of network equipment and what type of external addressing is needed?”  While you are trying to regain your composure and put your Network Engineer hat on, there will always be someone in the room with...
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