How to Create Your Disaster Recovery Plan

February 15, 2017

Creating your Disaster Recovery Plan

Are you & your company ready when disaster strikes? Are you sure?

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About Me

• Director of Database Administration with Paymetric

• Lives with her teenage daughter in Atlanta, GA

• A SQL Server DBA for over 15 years in various industries: financial,

pharmaceutical, eDiscovery, online commerce, government contracting

and nonprofits.

• Executive Committee SQL Saturday Atlanta

• Actively involved with Atlanta MDF User Group

• Co-Leader PASS Women in Technology Virtual Group

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I’m an IDERA ACE 4

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How to Create Your Disaster Recovery PlanCheck List• Define what’s important• Define stakeholders• Define RPO & RTO• Lay out plan for budgeting & building the infrastructure • Building a Back Up Strategy • Building a Recovery Strategy• Little “d” disasters vs big “d” disasters

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Knowing What’s Important

Before a Disaster• Knowing how long you can be down and how much data you can

lose

• Defining what systems and data are important

• Know your budget

• Who is responsible for declaring a disaster?

• Who is responsible for the actual recovery work?

• Does everyone understand the role they’ll play?

• Where do you store your plan, server lists, code, team contact

information? How will you access it once disaster strikes?

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Who are my Stakeholders?

• The people who ask & answer the questions• C-level Execs• The people that get the system up and running• The people affected by data loss/system outage?

• Application owners• Business users• Clients (Internal & External)

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Questions? 9

RTO & RPO

• The Recovery Time Objective (RTO) is the targeted duration of

time and a service level within which a business process must be

restored after a disaster (or disruption) in order to avoid

unacceptable consequences associated with a break in business

continuity.

• The Recovery Point Objective (RPO) is the previous point in time

to which service must be restored, and defines an amount of data

loss which is acceptable to the business.

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Recovery Time Objective

How Long Can You Be Down?

• Or put another way, how long until you have to come back up?

• What’s the business definition of RTO?• What’s the nature of your disaster?• Disaster vs Disruption: Is this a BIG D or little d diaster?

• It depends…

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Recovery Point Objective

How Much Data Can You Lose?

• This answer will vary across the business: from none to minutes, hours and days.

• Sometimes rebuilding is easier than restoring.• So how do you know?

• Executives & legal should help define this.

• If you can’t meet requirements, BE HONEST.

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Questions? 13

Building a Backup Strategy

Any DBA is as Good as Their Last Backup

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Start with the Basics

•Based on your RPO, how frequently do you need to take backups?

•Is a better solution for you a High Availability option like Availability Groups?

•We’re not just talking database backups. If you use it, you’ll need it.

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It’s Not Just About Databases

• Active Directory • Service Accounts• SQL Agent Job• Create Logins Script• Linked Server Info• Restore Scripts• Application Configs• Development Code

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• External Files• Encryption Keys• Passwords• Contact Information• Run Book• Drive Layouts• Backup Locations

Building Your Restore Strategy

Any DBA is Only as Good as Their Last Restore

•Establish recovery baselines•Practice recovery•Prove that your backups work!•Code if you’re using native backups. A step by step guide is you’re using an add-on tool.

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Practice! Practice! Practice! 18

“An untested plan is only a strategy.”Richard Gagnon

So You’ve Got a Plan?

• Where is your plan stored?• Hard or soft copy?• What’s in this so-called plan?• Who has access?• Who can modify it?• Do you publish it for clients?

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Disruptions vs Disasters

• What where clause?• Storage corruption• Drive Failure• Malicious inside• Accidental Code Change

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• DDOS• ISP goes down• Power Outage• Natural disaster• Unnatural disaster

Building it Out – What’s Your Budget

• Can you replicate production?• Wants vs Needs• Hardware, Licensing and Maintenance

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Questions? 22

Rie Shewbart Irish 23

@IrishSQL

www.riepedia.net

“Make ‘business continuity’ ‘business as usual’ and imbed it into your management routines as decisions are made, instead of an afterthought check off the box exercise later.”Bobbie Garrett

Identify Stakeholders.

Define your RTO & RPO

Plan & Build.

Build your Backups

Practice Recovery