#GartnerSYM: A lesson in disaster recovery

Michael White, evangelist at Veeam.

As organisations grow, so does its dependence on the data centre. An outage of this vital system can result in companies going out of business, suffering a loss of reputation, a loss of revenue, and more. So how do organisations ensure they survive a disaster of this magnitude, especially if they’ve never grappled with one as a team?

White offered Bizcommunity some helpful strategy advice when we sat down with him this week.

Debunk myths

The first step in orchestrating a successful disaster recovery (DR) strategy may be ridding organisations of false beliefs. “One of the most common misconceptions people have is that disaster won’t hit them.” In fact, he says the majority of his clients have experienced a data centre disaster of some sort at one point in time.

"Another [misconception] is the thought that they have to protect everything. Not only is this difficult to do, but it’s expensive and wasteful.”

He also added that when an organisation goes through a crisis, it will fare better if accounts payable is given attention ahead of accounts receivable. “People tend to want to bring back accounts receivable because they want money, but I’ve learnt that if you pay your bills during a crisis you’ll actually end up doing better than if you focused on accounts receivable first.”

Appoint a leader

Once organisations have acknowledged the need for a plan, somebody needs to be placed in charge of it. “There’s this terrible thing in data centres called silos. There’s the silo for the networking, the silo for storage, etc., and when you do DR work it takes people in each of those silos working together to prepare.

“By actually making somebody responsible, usually an executive sponsor, it means that when there are hiccups in those silos, you get to have somebody say ‘Hey, this is what you should be doing, we need to work together.’”

Practice makes perfect

It’s not rocket science, if you practice something it’s only a matter of time before you improve at it. According to White, the same applies in IT.

“I said to somebody a long time ago that they should practice DR work with a different group every Friday afternoon – let’s say Exchange the first week, and SharePoint the next. After the second or third time, you get somebody to sabotage it so they have to work a little harder. It worked! Not only did their DR confidence build up, but their various teams learned a lot through trial and error. They eventually, with practice, had a good DR plan.”

He’s given this advice a number of time since then, because it’s proven successful time and time again.

“Often in a disaster, the people that have planned and practiced for it aren’t there. By having a different group run though the strategy on a weekly basis, everybody has gone through the process and will be prepared to act with confidence – whether it be an IT leader or a Tier 1 help-desk assistant.”

Idea exchange

Despite pouring out wisdom to willing listeners at this year’s Symposium, White also told us he’s excited to connect with delegates and learn from them too.

“I want be able to talk one-on-one with people in the hallway or in the line, to hear what’s bothering them in their backups and their disaster recovery world. It’s where I get ideas and spot trends, which I get to take back to our product managers. That’s pretty exciting.”