Choosing a disaster recovery site

When designing a disaster recovery (DR) plan, one of the first decisions you’ll need to make is determining where you’ll recover your operations if catastrophe strikes your primary data center. I’ve been helping organizations plan for cyber recovery for many years, and in my experience, companies typically have three main options for their DR site. Here’s a look at the pros, cons, costs and risks of each approach.

Roll your own disaster recovery site 

The first option is to set up your own secondary DR data center in a different location from your primary site. Many large enterprises go this route; they build out DR infrastructure that mirrors what they have in production so that, at least in theory, it can take over instantly.

The appeal here lies in control. Since you own and operate the hardware, you dictate compatibility, capacity, security controls and every other aspect. You’re not relying on any third party. The downside of course, lies in cost. All of that redundant infrastructure sitting idle doesn’t come cheap. You need to purchase, install and maintain a second set of servers, storage, networking gear and more. Real estate, power, cooling – all the data center basics become a duplicate expense.

Not only that, but since the DR site is a full-scale replica, any time you add or change hardware in production, you need to do the same in the DR environment. And if you think about it, maintaining a DR site is like having a pool no one swims in: You still have to constantly clean and treat the water, trim the bushes, etc. It’s work that keeps ops resources busy but provides little tangible day-to-day value.

The danger here is that over time, the DR site becomes an afterthought. Changes stack up, configurations drift, and when disaster strikes, you find out the hard way that your recovery process wasn’t as turnkey as expected. Avoiding this requires diligent discipline to keep the two sites in sync. And of course, regular DR testing is a must.

Use a third-party disaster recovery service 

The second approach is to engage an external DR service provider to furnish and manage a recovery site on your behalf. Companies like SunGard built their business around this model. The appeal lies in offloading responsibility. Rather than build out your own infrastructure, you essentially reserve DR data center capacity with the provider.