The need for server recovery software and services, from RAID to Oracle to Exchange, has increased markedly in the past five years, owing mainly to the lower costs of server hardware. In the early 2000s, for example, small to mid-sized organizations tended to acquire and use less high end products, but as overall server costs began to shrink markedly, the demand for these mission critical applications increased. Now, it's common to see companies with less than 10 staff members operating a new Microsoft Exchange server, saving their customer data on a RAID server or handling their CRM on a NAS. Use of these technologies can, however, prove to be a double-edged sword.
Smaller organizations , almost as a rule, tend to make decisions faster, have more accountability and move faster than larger ones, which frequently operate by committee. When RAID and other high end servers crash, however, this can be a disadvantage. When a server hard drive failure affects a system hosting a mission-critical program, the results can be horrendous - certainly not the best time to consider a "do it yourself approach". Yet many smaller organizations have great trust in their IT administrators, and this trust, particularly in high-end server recovery, can be badly placed.
Server Recovery Planning And Your Organization
Does your organization have a server recovery action plan? If it's like most, it probably doesn't. The fact is, most people just don't expect relatively "safe" server setups like RAID 5 and above to crash. This, of course, is why designing a plan is so necessary. When the unlikely does happen, panic can follow. Consider these tips when creating your server data recovery action plan:
List Critical Resources Today - While it may sound rather obvious, researching critical IT and intellectual resources in preparation for a server meltdown is something most organizations have not done. All it takes, really, is a single text document listing all critical support forums, product update alerts and a server recovery vendor that can be trusted when your organization needs a solution. Attempting to research these details under duress is never good thing, as panic can occur. Of course, panic is the mother of permanent data loss.
Have An Expert At The Ready - When something bad happens to a server, the first instinct is to attempt to perform data recovery without the help of a professional. After all, IT administrators typically have a huge base of knowledge to use, and egos may come into play here. This is the typical scenario, but also the worst. Calling upon an expert that deals with situations like database corruption and server hard drive failures on a daily basis is unfeasible for most organizations, but having a database of key expert phone numbers is not. Calling an expert in times of real emergency is the best idea, as when hard drives and databases fail, taking action yourself typically makes things worse, and not better.
Backup Plans - Designing a complete backup plan, particularly for mission critical technologies, should really be a key role for any IT administrator. Unfortunately, it often is not. Backup applications, meanwhile, are extremely inexpensive and can be automated to ensure that in times of server problems, very little is misplaced - including time. Imagine that your organization's Exchange system has a dual hard disk drive failure. The likelihood of anyone using it at this point is zero. Now imagine that you could have the system running on a new server within an hour. Ok, now stop imagining. With a robust server recovery backup plan (and some spare hardware), this can be your situation. Planning for the worst helps in any situation, and understanding you have an ace up your sleeve can cut out a lot of distress.
Being proactive is critical to every IT administrator's function, and this preparedness must include all areas of responsibility. This is the best way to guaranteeing your server recovery is error-free.
Maureen Davies is an seasoned data recovery technician and the webmaster and editor of Hard Disk Recovery Services. Find out more about hard drive recovery and solve your own hard drive failure issues here.
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