Server Recovery Can Affect Business Survival

By Author: Andy Butler
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Effective server recovery can prove absolutely essential for business survival because servers are critical to business operations. Servers are continuously supporting operations by serving files, applications, transaction data and other kinds of support information and tools without which businesses and individuals would find it harder to survive.

Server Data Recovery Planning Differs From Server to Server

Businesses and departments differ in the lengths of downtimes they can tolerate. In a bank, for example, if current account information is not available, even for a short time during business hours, it can cause serious problems. On the other hand, if fixed assets information cannot be accessed for even a few days, the same bank might still be able to continue its normal operations.

Another aspect is the ease of reconstructing the data. With thousands of transactions every minute, reconstructing lost current account details is not the same as reconstructing the comparatively few fixed assets transactions.

Server recovery planning can thus opt for different alternatives for different servers. ...
... The servers serving current account transactions have to be fault-tolerant and must have immediate online access to backup data, if it becomes necessary. Fixed assets data can be backed up on offline media, which can even be stored in a distant location.

Backups Can Fail and Data Recovery Can Become Complex

Data backups can prove unreliable if they become corrupted, or contain data which has not been updated for quite a long time. In such cases, you have to either reconstruct the data or take action to recover data from the damaged media (which contains current data).

Reconstructing data from original sources is rarely a viable option except for small quantities of data. That leaves only the option of trying to recover lost data from the affected media.

Recovering Data From Servers

Servers come in a wide range of sizes and types, and work under very different platforms. Many internationally recognised companies and even individuals make servers, and each manufacturer offers different models. The servers might be working under Windows, Linux, Unix or other proprietary operating systems.

Data loss can be caused by different factors. For example data lost through deletion might be recovered rather more easily than data lost owing to a major catastrophe ( natural or manmade) which has physically damaged equipment or media.

Specialist training, experience, and tools are needed to recover data lost from any possible combination. You might be able to use data recovery software in some cases. In other cases replacing damaged components with compatible healthy components might work. In yet other cases, it might be necessary to work painstakingly analysing data streams to rebuild damaged files.

Conclusion

Server recovery, planning, and execution can prove critical to the very survival of a business. Servers are constantly serving files, applications and data to support business operations. If they are down, the operations suffer and profits are lost.

Selecting fault-tolerant systems with RAID 5 arrays for example (with its ability to cope with the loss of a drive) and implementing systematic backup procedures whilst minimizing data loss risks through appropriate training and other measures, are some of the ways you can plan for a business’ survival of a data loss catastrophe.

If data is lost or a drive / array has degraded despite all these measures, you will have to approach a server recovery specialist, who has the facilities, resources and techniques to recover as much data as possible.

About Author:

Andy Butler from ABC Data Recovery writes about Server-Recovery visit www.abc-data-recovery.co.uk for further information.