the past five years of technological advances have markedly lowered the costs of formerly high-end servers, and small organizations have benefited gre...
the past five years of technological advances have markedly lowered the costs of formerly high-end servers,
and small organizations have benefited greatly as a result. Now, a five employee company can gain all of the collaboration benefits of an Exchange server, as an example. RAID server arrays have become particularly popular, mainly because of the low cost (the Inexpensive Disks of RAID) of high speed storage. Naturally, it isn't all blue skies and hyper-productivity, however. Although being ready for for data loss is something most organizations forget about, it has become more critical than ever.
Everyone understands that the stronger ties and increased accountability in a small organization is what makes such an organization a dynamic one. The decisionmaking process, as a critical example, is performed with far greater efficiency, because of the smaller population of stakeholders involved. Employees are often encouraged to take responsibility, and use their skills without micromanagement. While this type of organization can offer a rewarding experience for all involved, it can create missteps in situations where server recovery may be necessary. IT administrators for small organizations tend to get used to "doing it themselves", which can actually prove quite harmful during a problematic hard drive failure.
Where Server Recovery Comes In
For small organizations especially, a server recovery action plan never seems like an important idea. RAID servers by their very nature are "redundant", many IT administrators suppose, so why bother planning for their failure? Naturally, this is the "unlikely event" we must all be ready for. When catastrophic RAID server failure does occur, being ready is the only way to avoid panic. Some key parts of a server data recovery action plan may be:
Build A Robust Knowledgebase - The simplest, and most often missed step when it comes to preparing for server hard disk failure is gathering crucial resources such as product instructions, IT forums, vendor forums and of course, a experienced hard drive recovery company. Once the harsh surprise of a corrupted CRM system strikes a productive organization, panic can set in, and attempting to research a knowledgebase under these circumstances can make for big problems. Big mistakes, meanwhile, cause permanent data loss.
Expertise Pays Dividends - IT administrators, as a rule, have a wide array of expertise in their field. In fact, it is this encyclopedic knowledge of IT assets and products that makes them a very key part of any organization, no matter how small. The problem here is that as a result, IT administrators typically work by themselves, and provide solutions on a do it yourself basis. Attempting do-it-yourself server recovery, meanwhile, is one of the most difficult and potentially catastrophic act someone without hard drive recovery experience can do. And because 99 out of 100 organizations do not employ someone with genuine physical hard drive recovery experience (nor do they have the specialized equipment), it is key to have the number of an expert. It never hurts to ask for help, and in this scenario, it will be necessary to avoid further issues.
Backup Plans - Drawing up a robust backup plan, particularly for mission critical technologies, should really be a key role for any IT administrator. Unfortunately, it typically is not. Backup applications, meanwhile, are astonishingly inexpensive and can be automated to ensure that in times of server distress, very little is misplaced - including time. Imagine that your organization's Exchange server has a dual hard disk drive meltdown. The probability of anyone using it at this point is zero. Now imagine that you could run the application on a new server within an hour. Ok, now stop imagining. With a robust server recovery backup plan (and some spare hardware), this can be your situation. Planning for the worst helps in any occurrence, and understanding you have an ace up your sleeve can cut out a lot of distress.
Data recovery emergencies happen every single day around the world, and all you can do is be ready for them. Readiness is the critical difference between a complete server recovery and a real panic.
