Disaster backs up and disaster recovery

Posted by Winnie Melda on December 4th, 2018

Introduction

In information, preparing a recovery from potential disaster is essential. A tested and well-designed backup and restore plan is essential for recovering your database after a disaster. So as to ensure that it is possible to restore all your systems and data to regular operation if a natural disaster occurs, one must create a disaster recovery plan. Backup and recovery refer to the strategies and procedures involved in protecting the database against the loss of data and reconstructing the database after any form of data loss. Database backup and disaster planning are essential aspects to consider when dealing with large data so as to ensure that one does not lose information in the event of a disaster. Thus, in this paper, I will describe database backup, disaster planning, and highlight the significance of integrating the two.

Database backup

Backup refers to a copy of data from the database that may be later useful in reconstructing the data. The database backup is the process of backing up the stored data of the database software. Database backup helps in the creation of a duplicate or a copy of the database in case the primary database crashes, is corrupted, or lost (Levitt, 2000). The database administrator may consider using the database backup copy in restoring the database to its operational state with its logs and data. The creation of a database backup may also be as a result of ensuring that the company complies with the government and business regulations. It also helps in maintain and ensuring access to essential business data in the case of a technical outage or a disaster.

There are physical backups and logical backups. The physical backups are the backup of physical files used in storage and recovery of databases such as control files, data files, and archived redo logs. Every physical backup is usually a copy of files storing database information to other locations whether it is offline storage or on a disk. The logical backups usually contain logical data exported from the database with Oracle export utility and stored in a binary file that one later imports into a database using the corresponding Oracle import utility (Gregory, 2008). The logical backups are a good supplement to physical backups, but they are not sufficient protection against the loss of data without physical backup.

Database backup usually fulfills several purposes that include long-term archiving, data recovery, and disaster recovery (Levitt, 2000). With a backup, in case a disastrous event strike the data center where the organization stores important business information, it will be easy to recover the data from the backup tapes onto alternate systems.

Disaster planning

Disaster planning is about the preparation for and response when a disaster hit. The aim of disaster planning is the organization survival. Different kinds of disasters usually happen, and it may be hard to escape their consequences. Disaster planning is planning done so as to prevent a disaster from occurring or to reduce the level of risk that the disaster will occur. It involves procedures established to prevent any impact happening as a result of the out-of-course event or to minimize the impact. A disaster refers to any event that has a chance of transpiring a high level of uncertainty and devastating outcome. There are natural and man-made disasters. The natural disasters are like earthquakes, fires, floods, and hurricanes while manmade disasters are bursting pipes, electric failure, and war. Disasters can happen anywhere on the planet so every organization must have a comprehensive and tested disaster plan that will detail how to resume the business operations in the event of a disaster.

A company that has an effective disaster plan will be able to resume its business operations and service customers much quicker than a company with no disaster plan (Schin, 2014). It is important that every company should have a plan to cope with the disaster because a company without a disaster recovery plan may never resume its operations. A disaster plan tends to offer a structured approach for responding to unplanned incidents that threaten the hardware, networks, software, people, and processes. The goal of disaster planning is to help minimize any negative impact on the company’s operations. In disaster planning, the recovery process tends to involve identifying the critical networks and systems, prioritizing the recovery time objectives, and delineating the steps necessary to restart, reconfigure and recover them.

A good disaster recovery plan should include the sources of expertise for recovering systems, the relevant supplier contacts, and the sequence of action steps to take for effective recovery. A good disaster plan should consider the hot sites, warm sites, and the cold sites. The sites focus on the necessary efforts to start the operations at the backup sites in case of a disaster (Schin, 2014). The hot site allows the individual to keep services and also a live backup site up and operating during a disaster. It usually allows for an immediate cutover when there is an incident at the primary site. The cold site is a data center space, power connectivity, and network that is ready whenever needed. A negative factor with the cold site is that it usually requires extensive engineering support and IT personnel. The warm site tends to allow to pre-install hardware and configure the bandwidth needs. When there is a disaster, one will need to load software and data so as to restore the business system.

Integrating disaster backups and disaster planning

Restoring the databases from valid backups tend to be a critical part of ensuring business continuity (Khosrowpour, 2006). A key responsibility of database administrator is preparing for the possibility of software, hardware, and media failure and also to recover the database from the disaster. In the case of the failures, the key objective is ensuring the database is available to users within the acceptable period. Integrating the database backup and disaster recovery is a key factor in addressing the minor and major disasters. When the organization integrates the two, it helps in understand the process to take when backing up data and also when addressing the incident. The integration of the two helps the organization with the best practices for backup and disaster recovery techniques necessary in protecting the firm and ensuring that the firm goes back to its operations as soon as possible. Lack of integrating the disaster planning and database backup may lead to confusion when a disaster strikes. When the organization cannot ensure the safety of its information, it can cause loss important information and may likely go out of business.

Conclusion

Database backup and disaster planning are essential in protecting the organization. In this paper, I provided an in-depth explanation of database backup and disaster planning and explained why it is essential to integrate the two.

Reference

Gregory, P (2008). IT disaster recovery planning.  Wiley Publishing, Inc

Khosrowpour, M (2006). Emerging trends and the challenges in information technology. USA, Idea Group Inc

Levitt, A (2000). Disaster planning and recovery. John Wiley & Sons

Schin, C. (2014). A planning guide for backup and restore. Disaster recovery journal, 27(4).

Sherry Roberts is the author of this paper. A senior editor at MeldaResearch.Com in affordable custom writing if you need a similar paper you can place your order from college research paper services.

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Winnie Melda

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Winnie Melda
Joined: December 7th, 2017
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