However, the major disaster recovery companies offer personnel, equipment, and facilities dedicated solely to restoring their customers' systems. That, in turn, makes them more attractive alternatives to companies relying on business-critical applications, he says. Numerous other critical capabilities are required in an effective disaster recovery program, as well. These include backing up data regularly, using electronic vaulting, and the mirroring of servers containing key communications information. Conventional disaster recovery planning often begins with a daily backup of data to tape, with the tapes stored in a secure, off-site facility.
Tape backup is relatively inexpensive, a widely deployed technology, and is highly reliable.
But it can be inadequate when a disruption occurs between backup sessions, for instance if a disaster strikes after a workday and before the next backup session. Electronic vaulting, or backing up data over a network to a remote facility, provides a practical alternative to tape backup. In this scheme, the backup computer can take over some of the application processing normally run on the primary systems. In addition, a backup system in an electronic vaulting environment can even back up multiple distributed systems. This technique not only minimizes the number of backup systems required, it offers the potential for quick recovery.