Microsoft SQL Server Disaster

Recovery and Availability

March 14, 2006

 Definitions
(http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/storage/storgloss.mspx)

• From glossary
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/storage/storgloss.mspx

– Business Continuity:
The ability of an organization to continue to function even after a disastrous
event, accomplished through the deployment of redundant hardware and
software, the use of fault tolerant systems, as well as a solid backup and
recovery strategy.

– Disaster Recovery:
The ability to recover from the loss of a complete site, whether due to natural
disaster or malicious intent. Disaster recovery strategies include replication and
backup/restore.

• Note that DR-related terms are used very inconsistently. Be certain that all
parties in your organization understand and use agreed-upon definitions in
order to avoid confusion.

March 14, 2006

 Definitions (cont.)
• For clarity, we’ll use the following definitions today:
– Disaster: an event that results in serious loss of data
or service
– Disaster Recovery: A process that allows
continuation of business following a disaster,
including manual methods
– Offsite Disaster Recovery: A process that allows
disaster recovery at a remote location (usually entire
site)
– Business Continuity: A process that includes
disaster recovery and offsite disaster recovery as well
as using systems to avert disasters, such as fault-
tolerant hardware and software

March 14, 2006

 Definitions (cont.)
• From http://support.microsoft.com/kb/822400/en-us

“Disaster recovery planning is the work that is

devoted to preparing all the actions that must
occur in response to a disaster. The planning
includes the selection of a strategy to help
recover valuable data. The selection of the
appropriate disaster recovery strategy
depends on your business requirements.”

March 14, 2006

 Definitions (cont.)
Disaster and Recovery Examples
• Data are deleted from a critical application table
– Perform point-in-time recovery to time of problem
• A network hardware failure prevents a database server from being
accessed over network
– Wait for hardware to be replaced
– Fail over to warm standby
– Fail over to hot standby
• 2 drives fail in a RAID-5 disk array
– Replace hardware and restore from backups
– Fail over to warm standby
– Fail over to hot standby
• Fire disrupts all electric power to data center
– Wait for service to be restored
– Implement offsite disaster recovery plan
• An earthquake levels company headquarters
– Implement offsite disaster recovery plan

March 14, 2006

 Business Continuity Planning
• Business continuity requirements are driven by
internal/external customer service level agreements (SLAs)
– How much data loss is permissible
– How long can application be unavailable
– What is the minimum service level required (e.g. online response
time following a fail-over) and maximum permissible time in degraded
state
– Different applications will have different SLAs
• Management must
– Consider additional cost of redundant facilities, equipment, software,
administration, testing, etc.
– Evaluate risks of added complexity
– Balance real (hard-dollar) costs of Business Continuity scenarios
against the likelihood of such a scenario actually occurring

March 14, 2006

 Business Continuity Planning
(cont.)
• Discuss different scenarios with business
users to manage expectations
• Include specific scenarios in BC
documentation
• Recovery must be tested regularly
• DR plan also includes switching back to
primary hardware/site

March 14, 2006

 Business Continuity (cont.)
System Availability
Percent Availability Annual Downtime

99 3d 5:36:00

99.9 0d 08:05:36

99.99 0d 00:52:33.6

99.999 0d 00:05:15.360

99.9999 0d 00:00:31.536
March 14, 2006
 Business Continuity
Summary

• Business Continuity is a spectrum of

strategies and solutions from 24x7x365
availability through no recovery at all
• Even the best BC plan cannot anticipate
all recovery scenarios – some ad-hoc
procedures may be needed during
implementation to minimize data loss

March 14, 2006