Opinion: The ugly side of disaster recovery

Top Stories

Related

• Clues point to Jan. 13 release of Windows 7 beta
• Microsoft releases Vista SP2 beta
• Obama's DHS pick may find support for raising H-1B cap at confirmation hearing
• IBM wants info from Apple execs in Papermaster case
• Report: Former AOL chief exec tries to raise funds to buy Yahoo
• U.S. report sees major terror attack by 2013, ignores cyberattack risk

• SAP's Kagermann had concerns about TomorrowNow deal, filing shows
• 7 ways to cut your software costs during the economic downturn
• New IBM tools aim to reduce IT risk, developer frustration
• James Allen
• Making storage easier for non-IT execs to understand

Zone

Business Continuity Zone An organization's business continuity plan helps keep critical functions running during an emergency–the power fails, a virus is unleashed on your network, a natural disaster has occurred. Even the slightest downtime or loss of data can cripple your operation. CDW can help you prevent disaster by implementing a well-planned recovery strategy. Click here to visit the Zone See All Zones

May 8, 2008 (Computerworld) There are a thousand criteria to account for when selecting a disaster recovery (DR) site. The number of miles from your DR site to your production site and meeting your application recovery time objectives are just some of the variables that companies try to address. Now add "Create a movable DR site just in case" to the list.

This week, John Chaffe, Tidewater Inc.'s director of information technology, offered his views at Compellent's C-Drive user conference in Minneapolis. Chaffe was attending a session on "Doing Disaster Recovery Right" and he described his personal DR experience during a question-and-answer period at the end of the session.

Tidewater's offices are in New Orleans, and it needed to move to its DR site in 2005 before Hurricane Katrina hit. Since Tidewater's secondary DR site was also in New Orleans, it elected to load up the company's production systems into two SUVs and move them to a site out of the hurricane's path. They selected Houston as the new DR site.

Aside from the stress of moving the computer equipment and transforming a Houston strip mall office into an operational data center, Chaffe faced the same challenge less than a month later. Hurricane Rita formed in the Atlantic and headed straight for Houston, forcing Chaffe to once again box up and move Tidewater's entire data center to another site.

Tidewater's choice of a using a DR site so close to its production site was probably not the best choice, but no foolproof method exists to protect yourself when lightning (or hurricanes) strike twice. In these circumstances, performing a disaster recovery using tapes, servers and an SUV is not elegant, but it is one that a company might want to keep in their back pocket.

Jerome Wendt is the president and lead analyst at DCIG Inc. You may read his blogs at www.dciginc.com.