| to say, what is your stated service level | | | | customer confidence? |
| agreement (SLA) for application and data | | | | Making these decisions and being alert to the |
| recovery time and recovery point objectives | | | | affect of application downtime will help you to |
| (RTO and RPO)? | | | | decide which applications require the most |
| RTO deals with the how fast an application has to | | | | attention. Establishing which applications require the |
| be back up and running after a failure, while RPO | | | | most precise RTO and RPO is the first step in |
| deals with the volume of data that can be lost. | | | | deciding what type of solution and architecture will |
| RTO and RPO can also be defined in terms of | | | | work best for your business. |
| capital. That is, how long can you afford to be | | | | Over the years, a vast array of point products |
| down and the amount of data can you afford to | | | | has been developed to solve the specified |
| waste. When defined in monetary terms, it | | | | availability problems of the time. Whilst there has |
| becomes rather clear as to where the focus | | | | always been the need for a solution to bring |
| needs to be. | | | | applications back online quickly after a failure, with |
| There are numerous solutions that provide data | | | | as little loss as possible, discovering a complete |
| RPO in the seconds range. However, by | | | | solution to the problem has remained elusive. |
| comparison, there are surprisingly few solutions | | | | However, more recent technology advances (in |
| that can also deliver the same, for application | | | | replication, clustering, e duplication etc.) mean that |
| RTO. Neverfail is one of the select few, to have | | | | is now possible to move away from the well |
| developed the required technologies required to | | | | known Recovery Centric approach to clearing up |
| deliver a solution that provides application RTO | | | | the situation, towards a more Availability Centric |
| and RPO in the near zero range, quickly getting rid | | | | approach. |
| of application downtime. | | | | Even though choices have been made with regard |
| So, how do you know which applications are the | | | | to the criticality of applications in an environment, |
| most important? | | | | there is still an overriding fact that cannot be |
| Which require RTO/RPO in the near zero | | | | excluded, application downtime is intolerable for |
| timeframe? | | | | most application owners, users, customers and |
| The solutions to such questions are in fact pretty | | | | management. Given this, it seems like ensuring the |
| simple. Which applications bring about the most | | | | application is adequately protected and monitored, |
| help desk calls when they are unavailable? Which | | | | so that a pre emptive action can be taken to |
| applications, when unavailable, cause the | | | | solve a issue before it becomes an concern, is |
| organization to lose money, or productivity, or | | | | key. |