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Network Infrastructure for Business Continuity
Business is fast-paced, 24/7 and data dependent. In a world of global operations, Internet-based applications and overnight delivery, businesses rely more heavily on their network infrastructures than ever before. This reality has pushed disaster recovery and business continuity planning to the forefront for business executives as well as IT professionals.
In a recent ITWorld Webcast, Donna Scott, a vice president with Gartner’s enterprise management and storage group, noted that an acceptable recovery time five years ago averaged three days with a recovery point within 24 hours of failure. Today’s data-intensive companies average 25 percent of their application portfolio and have shortened recovery times to well within 24 hours and target recovery points to the moment of failure.
These increased business continuity expectations have a significant impact on many aspects of a business including network infrastructure planning. The good news is that Network Hardware Resale can deliver most equipment next-day when emergencies arise, but IT pros certainly prefer to avoid a crisis when they can.
Experts and NHR customers who have developed successful continuity and recovery strategies offer the following infrastructure best-practices.
- Consider business continuity with each purchase. Acquiring funding for “just in case” technology purchases is difficult, but production system upgrades often provide the opportunity to purchase with disaster recovery in mind. As you upgrade the network, consider making infrastructure enhancements and diversifying telecommunications networks to mitigate risks.
- For optimal recovery, create a dedicated recovery data center. Data-driven companies like financial institutions, health care providers, and communications service providers, often demand point-of-failure recovery in mere hours. To recover within 24 hours, experts recommend a dedicated recovery data center that mirrors the production environment. Investing in pre-owned networking equipment for a recovery site decreases equipment costs by more than half.
- Sparing provides critical security. Regardless of company size, sparing is a solid strategy for emergency network back-up that is within most budgets. Whether equipment failure stems from routine wear-and-tear or a disaster, having a spare or a “hot spare” dramatically reduces recovery time. Many companies find that sparing with pre-owned equipment is more cost-effective than extended service agreements.
- No idle assets. Equipment purchased to provide business continuity in case of disaster should not sit idle waiting for an emergency. A dedicated back-up site can be used to process non-critical workloads or allocated to development and testing. When a disaster occurs, critical workloads fail-over to the back-up location superseding non-critical activities.
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Successful Synchronizing
When synchronizing redundant equipment, consistency is key. For instance, if you are setting up redundant RSPs with the 7500 platform, GRPs with the GSR platform or Catalyst supervisor engines and PIX Firewalls, the following tips will keep your set-up in synch.
- Each card must be running identical software, either Cat OS or IOS. This includes boot images.
- The boot characteristics or boot variables must be set and identical.
- Each router or supervisor engine must have an identical amount of DRAM. Each DRAM DIMM does not have to be from the same manufacturer, but all must have the same capacity (i.e., 128MB, 256MB, 512MB, etc.)
- The Bootflash SIMM and/or the flash card/disk do not need to be the same, but they must have enough memory available to hold the same boot image, IOS, Cat OS and/or configuration files.
- With PIX Firewall redundant systems:
- Licensed features must be identical. For example, if you are using the 3DES-AES license, it must enabled on the Unrestricted as well as the Failover chassis.
- The number of user Interfaces must also be identical. If you are using four Fast Ethernet interfaces on your Unrestricted chassis, the Failover chassis must also have four.
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by Gordon Thompson
Warehouse Technical Manager
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Doron Halevi
Warehouse Manager, Europe
Doron Halevi is the warehouse manager at Network Hardware Resale’s European headquarters in Amsterdam. With NHR’s European operations growing rapidly, Doron oversees warehouse operations and equipment testing as well as technical support for customers throughout Europe, Africa and Asia.
“NHR is committed to providing exceptional technical service to all our customers worldwide, and it’s critical that we do so with their language and time zone requirements in mind,” said Glenn Fassett, general manager of Network Hardware Resale’s European operations. “We have technical facilities on two continents offering assistance in 10 different languages. Industry-leading technical support is part of NHR’s unwavering commitment to extraordinary service.”
Doron joined Network Hardware Resale three years ago following a career as a network administrator. He notes that his extensive real-world experience installing, configuring and troubleshooting networking equipment makes him a resource for customers who may be unsure of their needs.
“I often work with customers before they make a purchase to help them select equipment that is best suited to their network design and requirements,” explained Halevi. “And, we are here to help with any questions after the sale. Our customers are often surprised that they can make one call to NHR and speak with someone who can answer their technical questions.”
Doron is a graduate of the University of California Santa Barbara with a degree in physics. He has earned CCNA and CCDA credentials.
If you would like to speak with Doron Halevi or NHR’s other technical support professionals, ask your account executive to set up a technical call. |
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© 2005 Network Hardware Resale, LLC.
Network Hardware Resale, NHR, Network Intelligence, and the Network Hardware Resale logo are trademarks of Network Hardware Resale LLC. All other company and product names are trademarks of their respective owners.
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