Keep in mind that there is no "one size fits all" solution--different applications and data may have different recovery requirements that may be best served by several types of systems. Good policy-based storage-management software may prove useful in keeping multiple processes under control in complex settings (find news and reviews of storage-oriented products on our Storage Pipeline site, at www.nwc.storagepipeline.com). Test the candidate products thoroughly for compatibility with your requirements and infrastructure. And keep testing them as requirements change.
Finally, share your results and experiences--in user groups, online forums and letters to the editor. There's a dearth of reliable "in-the-trenches" information for fellow planners, and the vendor marketecture mill is operating, as usual, in overdrive. Your experience can help bridge the information gap.
Bottom line: Data protection is an important undertaking that has been the odd man out at many companies for too long. Unfortunately, this places planners, many of them with no formal training, in the awkward situation of having to "bolt on" solutions to infrastructures that were not designed for recoverability. (To see how a group of vendors helped our fictional grocery titan beef up its disaster-recovery capabilities, see "Natural Selection.")
Jon William Toigo is CEO of storage consultancy Toigo Partners International and author of 13 books, including Disaster Recovery Planning: Preparing for the Unthinkable (Pearson Education, 2002). Write to him at [email protected].
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