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CIOs cite business continuity as a top of mind issue whenever they are surveyed about their top needs and concerns. Mitigating business and operational risks and reducing the business impact and costs of disruption and outages are ongoing concerns for business and IT executives alike.
For many enterprises, the need to deliver IT services around the clock, without interruption, has become a requirement and a challenge in many industries, especially outside of those industries traditionally focused on such services, for example, financial services and telecommunications providers.
HP has been delivering disaster tolerant solutions to its customers for more than 20 years. We believe that HP is uniquely able to deliver a complete solution that embraces the full range of server and storage solutions. We are not limited to just servers, or just storage, or just one server technology or one storage technology. No matter your technology needs and preferences, we can design and deliver complete disaster tolerant solutions to meet your requirements, regardless of how stringent they may be.
HP recently released the Disaster Proof demonstration video on business continuity and availability. This video provides a clear description of the breadth, depth, and capabilities of HP solutions, and shows a ?real to life? simulation of how these solutions protect the business when a disastrous event takes place.
This white paper presents HP disaster tolerant solutions implemented with the HP StorageWorks XP24000 Disk Array and other associated XP computing systems and fabric.
This paper also introduces the HP StorageWorks XP24000 Disk Array, a new universal data storage and replication platform from HP. The XP24000 Disk Array helps customers meet business continuity challenges cost effectively, while protecting and leveraging existing technology investments. It also enables enterprises to increase service levels while reducing management complexity and operational risk.
For business continuity applications, the key features and benefits of the XP24000 Disk Array include:
- Replication with data integrity and consistency?based on the proven technology of
HP StorageWorks XP Continuous Access, and now extended to heterogeneous storage and server platforms with the XP24000 Disk Array
- Robust long-distance replication capabilities?using disk-based journaling to increase resilience, while improving performance of production applications and reducing costs
- Advanced multi?data center configurations?intelligently combining synchronous and asynchronous replication technologies to meet business needs more effectively, and at lower cost
- Connectivity to and integration with all major operating systems for extended clusters and automatic failure
- Management of externally attached, heterogeneous disk storage?enabling data migration and replication to lower-cost disk when appropriate, and providing consistent tools and procedures for operational resilience
This paper illustrates the application of these technologies to meet enterprise needs cost effectively in several scenarios, including business continuity testing, backup operations, and data lifecycle management.
Introduction
Business continuity is of increasing concern to enterprises today as they respond to external threats and operational risks?and to more stringent demands from corporate stakeholders and regulatory agencies.
Business continuity involves management and technology strategies that maintain required service levels for essential business functions and processes, preventing or minimizing interruptions caused by unplanned events. Business continuity planning typically focuses on data protection and availability, in addition to business-critical processes, skills, logistics, and recovery. Technology capabilities for business continuity often include high-availability infrastructure at primary production locations, combined with disaster recovery capabilities at one or more remote sites.
For a business continuity solution to be effective, it must be comprehensive. The solution must cover all computing capabilities, networking, and storage resources. Technical expertise, operations, and human factors must all be considered.
Due to the complexity of comprehensive business continuity solutions, having an experienced partner assist in the design, implementation, and ongoing management of the total solution will save the customer money and time, as well as improve the effectiveness of the actual solution.
Disaster Proof demonstration
As one of the world's leading computing technology companies, HP has a unique capability to analyze a customer's business continuity needs; design a solution that encompasses all of the customers computing, networking, and storage needs; and then implement that solution. HP recently staged the Disaster Proof scenario as a test and demonstration of these capabilities.
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