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Storage Methods That Prepare You for the Worst (Continued)
Tactics for DR Plan Implementation
Now that you've considered the importance of storage virtualization, mirroring, and replication, or the "nuts and bolts" of disaster recovery, let's outline a sound strategy that you can execute efficiently and effectively when an emergency occurs. Using these steps, you'll see how both methods and their variations can help you achieve sound business continuity practices.
Step 1: Addressing interoperability issues
When working with a SAN, which is what you'll typically be using in architecting a disaster recovery plan, ensuring interoperability between each component's software, firmware, and hardware is crucial. You should conduct exhaustive and detailed testing on each of these components, and their revision levels in particular.
You'll also need to test the overall DR framework to make sure it's compatible with intended applications. The bottom line is that you have to develop and document detailed processes and methodologies to achieve sound results: be scientific rather than just throwing together a plan at the last minute, without seeing proof that it works.
Step 2: Prioritize data and match data types with recovery level
If your business involves a significant amount of online transaction processing, as many traditionally brick-and-mortar companies do, achieving a full backup through synchronous disk-to-disk data replication over a safe distance is one possible option to consider. This means that you need to implement server clustering, remote data replication, and mirroring solutions. This combination will create a transparent failover from the production site to the backup site, regardless of whether the failure occurred on the server or storage device level.
One issue to consider is latency, which can occur in synchronous data replication if the backup site is more than 100 miles away from the primary production site. In the case of the recent blackout, wireless service, for example, could not be restored immediately because the disaster recovery sites were located within the blackout region.
That is where asynchronous data replication comes in. Because this data copying method is less susceptible to latency, it can enable successful backup between primary and DR sites for distances over hundreds or thousands of miles, well past the center point of the potential or actual disruption.
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Virtualization, Mirroring 
