Migrating instant recovery to production is an important step to ensure business continuity and disaster recovery capabilities. There are several key considerations when moving instant recovery into a production environment.
What is instant recovery?
Instant recovery refers to the ability to quickly restore systems and data from a backup. Rather than waiting hours or days for full system restores, instant recovery can bring systems and data online in minutes. This is achieved by maintaining a replica of production systems that can be activated on demand.
Instant recovery is an essential capability for meeting recovery time objectives (RTOs) and recovery point objectives (RPOs). RTO refers to the maximum acceptable downtime following a disruption. RPO refers to the maximum amount of data loss acceptable during recovery. Instant recovery helps meet tight RTOs and RPOs by eliminating lengthy restore times.
Benefits of instant recovery
There are several key benefits instant recovery provides:
- Minimizes downtime – Systems and data can be recovered in minutes rather than hours or days.
- Meets RTOs – Tight recovery time objectives can be met by eliminating lengthy restores.
- Protects against data loss – Near-zero RPOs can be achieved, minimizing data loss.
- Improves resilience – Outages and disruptions can be quickly overcome.
- Reduces costs – Less downtime means lower financial losses and productivity impacts.
By leveraging instant recovery, organizations can significantly strengthen their disaster recovery posture and limit disruption to business operations.
Instant recovery architectures
There are two main architectures used for instant recovery solutions:
Backup-based instant recovery
With backup-based instant recovery, periodic backups are taken of production systems. Rather than performing full restores from backup media, virtual machines can be instantly spun up from the backup copies. This provides rapid recovery of systems and data.
Replication-based instant recovery
Replication-based instant recovery maintains a replicated copy of production systems in sync with the primary copy. If the primary systems become unavailable, the replica copy can be immediately activated to continue operations. This mirror copy is continuously updated, enabling rapid RTOs and RPOs.
In addition to these main architectures, some solutions combine both replication and backup for comprehensive instant recovery capabilities.
Requirements for instant recovery
There are several key requirements to implement and leverage instant recovery in production environments:
Production-equivalent infrastructure
The instant recovery environment must utilize infrastructure comparable to the production environment. This includes elements such as:
- Compute – Similar server configurations and processing capacity.
- Storage – Equivalent storage performance and capacity.
- Networking – Comparable network bandwidth, configuration and security.
Any differences between the production and instant recovery environments can impact the ability to failover seamlessly.
Integrated processes
Operational processes must account for instant recovery. This includes:
- Scheduled testing – Regular failover tests to validate capabilities.
- Monitoring – Visibility into replication status and system health.
- Runbooks – Documentation for failover, failback and ongoing management.
- Training – Educating teams on instant recovery management.
With robust processes in place, organizations can maintain readiness to leverage instant recovery when needed.
Current data
The instant recovery environment must maintain current copies of production data. This requires:
- Ongoing replication – Data is continuously copied to the instant recovery environment to prevent divergence.
- Log synchronization – Database transaction logs are replicated to apply recent data.
- Consistency groups – Related data sets are replicated together to maintain consistency.
Keeping data current is necessary to achieve near-zero RPOs during recovery.
Compatible configurations
The configurations and settings between production and instant recovery environments must be compatible. Examples include:
- Active Directory – AD structure is replicated.
- DNS settings – DNS configurations are copied.
- IP address schemes – Networks and IP addressing match production.
- Security configurations – Security controls and settings are mirrored.
Incompatible configurations can cause system-wide outages when failing over.
Steps for migrating to production
When implementing instant recovery capabilities in production, there are key steps to follow:
1. Design and build instant recovery environment
The first step is designing and building out an environment that mirrors production. This covers the compute, storage, networking and configuration requirements outlined earlier.
2. Implement backup and/or replication
With the environment in place, backup and replication technologies can be deployed to maintain copies of production systems and data. The solution should be designed to meet RTO and RPO targets.
3. Develop operational procedures
It’s critical to develop documentation covering failover, failback, testing and ongoing management procedures. Training programs should educate teams on executing these runbooks.
4. Run pilot failover test
A pilot failover test provides an opportunity to validate capabilities and identify any gaps before going live. Lessons learned can be used to refine the solution prior to full production rollout.
5. Transition to live production
With a successful pilot test complete, the solution can transition to live production status. Ongoing replication ensures the environment continues matching the primary production environment.
6. Maintain regular testing
Even after go-live, periodic testing should be conducted to verify capabilities are maintained over time. Testing also serves as training opportunities for staff.
Best practices for production instant recovery
Follow these best practices when implementing and managing instant recovery in production:
- Meet RTOs and RPOs – Architect solution to meet business recovery objectives.
- Automate failover processes – Script failover procedures to accelerate recovery.
- Use consistent methodologies – Replicate systems using consistent methods.
- Validate replicas frequently – Regularly verify replicas match production.
- Test failover processes – Conduct testing to validate capabilities.
- Monitor health proactively – Use monitoring tools to identify issues early.
- Update runbooks periodically – Maintain accurate operational documentation.
By following these best practices, organizations can fully leverage instant recovery to strengthen resilience and continuity capabilities.
Pitfalls to avoid
There are also some key pitfalls to avoid when implementing production instant recovery:
- Inadequate infrastructure – Underpowered resources lead to poor performance.
- Limited testing – Insufficient testing causes failure when disasters strike.
- Outdated recovery plans – Runbooks must be kept current to be effective.
- Unverified replication – Lack of validation allows replicas to diverge.
- Inconsistent configurations – Mismatched settings between environments causes outages.
- No operational training – Lack of training results in fumbled responses.
By being aware of these pitfalls and designing robust solutions, organizations can avoid common mistakes and maximize the value of instant recovery capabilities.
Key considerations by data type
The specific approaches for replicating and recovering data depends on the type and criticality of the data. Some key considerations include:
Databases
- Transaction log replication provides low RPOs.
- Backup from replica minimizes downtime.
- Methods like log shipping maintain continuity.
- Test failover with non-production clone first.
File shares
- Schedule frequent replication cycles.
- Make use of built-in capabilities like DFS-R.
- Granularly recover critical folders first.
- Validate permissions and attributes in replicas.
- Replicate mailbox databases with native tools.
- Redirect MX records to shift mailflow.
- Replicate mail queues to prevent message loss.
- Test mail flow into and out of replica system.
Custom applications
- Understand data flow and touch points.
- Determine app-consistent recovery requirements.
- Orchestrate coordinated recoveries.
- Verify application functionality after failover.
Optimizing instant recovery methods based on the type and criticality of data is key to maintaining business continuity across all IT systems and applications.
Conclusion
Instant recovery is a crucial capability for enhancing resilience and meeting demanding RTOs and RPOs. Migrating instant recovery to production requires careful planning, robust processes, and ongoing testing and management. By leveraging the right techniques for key data types and avoiding common pitfalls, organizations can fully realize the benefits instant recovery provides.
With a strong instant recovery solution incorporated into production operations, businesses can be confident in their ability to rapidly overcome outages while protecting against data loss. Instant recovery enables maintaining continuity of operations even when disruptions strike.
