By Kevin Harris

Historically, deep pocketed, large enterprises have been well versed in disaster recovery (DR) and understand the severe implications for failing to implement a robust and well thought out plan. While there are certainly dozens of compelling reasons for having an outsourced hot site, it comes at a high cost.

As a result, the small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) have been less vigilant with their DR plans and are seemingly willing to risk a disaster tomorrow to save a penny today.

Given the spectrum of disasters that may impact a company's IT operations and the resulting grave consequences for not having a DR strategy, why are so many of these enterprises “flying blind” without an integrated data insurance policy? The reasons can be varied.

For example, concerns about the cost outlay in implementing a program can inhibit progress. It can be especially difficult when trying to “sell” a CFO on a traditionally invisible project and a return on investment (ROI) challenged project such as DR.

Also, the growing information technology (IT) talent crunch has many executives throwing in the towel on DR strategies, and allocating their precious staff time to other technology projects.

While many IT executives are adopting virtualization technology to consolidate and reduce production hardware costs, the true visionaries are utilizing virtualization for disaster recovery to help reduce recovery time objectives (RTOs). This emerging trend is aptly named virtual disaster recovery (VDR).

In fact, in its “Worldwide System Infrastructure Software 2007: Top 10 Predictions,” IDC claims that the next wave in virtualization will focus on continuity, disaster recovery and high availability.

VDR Uncovered
Virtualization, like many hot new technologies, has received quite a bit of buzz over the past 18 months. Though many emerging technologies come with over-hyped claims, virtualization has the goods to back it up. Virtualization offers tangible benefits in increased reliability, flexibility and efficiency, particularly to cost-constrained SMBs.

Utilizing virtualization technology, VDR solutions give SMBs the ability to recover mission-critical business systems quickly and more cost-effectively than the traditional model. More specifically, VDR decreases total cost of ownership (TCO) by reducing overhead capital investment, while increasing the scalability and availability of enterprise storage environments.

Additionally, VDR eliminates the downtime associated with traditional storage recovery solutions, such as contracted hardware and facility services, and allows organizations to quickly access their data after their disaster recovery solution is deployed at a fraction of the cost. This is a critical factor, as enterprises can no longer wait for days to come back online. Typically, a few hours is the maximum amount of time in which an organization’s business processes must be restored in order to avoid disastrous consequences associated with a break in continuity.

Furthermore, virtualization allows businesses the ability to quickly deploy an additional disaster recovery resource at a low cost for a newly introduced system in their infrastructure, saving them time and money, yet fully protecting their latest Business Intelligence investment. It also allows an organization to easily perform DR tests with no production interruption and minimal man hours spent on the part of administrators.

Prior to introducing virtualization in a disaster recovery process, SMBs generally did three things:
1) Nothing – this is the “deal with it when it happens” approach
2) Keep extra hardware – this is where servers are bought in duplicate, one for production and one for DR
3) Contract for a Recovery Site – this is an agreement with companies who specialize in providing physical facilities and systems to aid businesses in their recovery. The process of relocating staff, mobilizing backup media to the alternate location and beginning recovery in a foreign environment on unfamiliar hardware was risky, costly and time consuming. SMBs are constantly faced with the dilemma of managing this big “insurance” expense for a relatively unlikely need versus taking the risk of having nothing in place and dealing with an interruption should it occur.

Is VDR a ‘no brainer’?
Well, yes and no.

As SMBs continue to explore VDR solutions, there remain several challenges and issues that require attention.

Generally SMBs do not have the financial or personnel resources to invest in owning their own disaster recovery solution. Those that may have the funds may not have the resources or expertise to learn all about virtualization, master it enough to implement it into a disaster recovery strategy and then be comfortable enough to run their business from it at the time of need.

Those few that do have the resources will generally find the investment is truly worthwhile. For the majority who fall into the resource-challenged category, outsourcing is a model worthy of high consideration. But, with that there are some key things to be aware of.

In an outsourced model, the service will surely be placed on shared resources, so ensuring the security of your virtualized environment is very important. Many virtualization products are quite secure by design, but having the added ability to manage your own security is a significant value.

Other things to look for are service providers whose focus is on disaster recovery. For those with the knowledge, deploying a virtualized environment is a relatively easy process. But ensuring a virtualized environment is properly designed and prioritized for disaster recovery is paramount.

Another issue to be aware of is how will you get your data restored to that virtualized environment? Are you currently backing up to tape or disk? How will you get that data to the virtual server? Since it may take a while to transport data, is the expected delivery SLA acceptable? If not, finding a VDR provider that can also host backup will ensure the quickest recovery.

The last thing to consider is how will your users connect to the recovered virtual environment? If they will be working remotely, what tools are available for them to utilize the business applications needed to resume the core of the business?

Finding a provider whose business focus is purely on business recovery will ensure you are dealing with experts that have your disaster recovery plan as their highest priority.

Despite the clear benefits, virtualization is not a cure-all for poor planning and weak existing processes. An overall VDR solution must be accompanied by a strong IT and business process foundation, including a well thought out preparedness plan.

Disaster recovery planning is key to business continuity and data integrity. If companies aren’t prepared for the worst, that's just what they might get. As SMBs explore the multitude of various benefits virtualization technology can provide, it’s time to now think about how it can play into a DR strategy. It’s easier and more cost effective than many may think.

Kevin Harris is co-founder, vice president and CIO of AmeriVault. www.Amerivault.com