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Windows drives countless corporate networks around the globe. And because of its essential role in e-infrastructure, Windows, and Windows server applications in particular, assume an ever-increasing responsibility for driving the revenues?that is, the lifeblood?of the corporate world. It is no stretch to say that Windows high availability must be a fundamental element in your short- and long-term strategic IT planning.
This white paper discusses Windows high availability, with a focus on business drivers and benefits. Indeed, cost and real-world benefit, which are central to the white paper, are considered the two most important elements in choosing the right high availability solution. The paper first discusses current market solutions and technologies. Real-world challenges, including cost-benefit analyses, are discussed in detail. The white paper also discusses the major technical elements required in choosing a high availability solution, including the robustness of the technology, time-tofailover, and implementation difficulties. These issues are discussed with two core applications as examples, Microsoft SQL Server and Exchange Server. In conclusion, the white paper discusses Neverfail's high availability solutions, with an emphasis on how they can affect the reliability and resilience of your small, medium, and corporate networks.
In today's world, Windows plays a crucial role in business e-infrastructure. For everything from the stock market to hospitals to military organizations, Windows servers run mission-critical applications. Because of the critical nature of these servers and the applications that they provide, it is vital that companies maintain a robust, reliable, and fully redundant Windows server infrastructure. This white paper addresses the concerns that most CTOs, CIOs, and managers face today: ensuring that Windows servers and applications remain available at all times.
Business Drivers for High Availability
High availability is all about keeping mission-critical systems up and running at all times. Down systems are expensive, sometimes devastatingly so. Network World provides estimates of the cost of downtime (http://www.nwfusion.com /careers/2004/0105man.html ) for operations such as Supply- Chain Management at $11,000 per minute for larger organizations. Depending on how heavily you rely on your network and Windows infrastructure, this cost may be even greater. You can break down the cost of downtime, and the business drivers for high availability, into three broad categories: revenue loss and growth, service level agreements, and business continuity.
Revenue Loss and Growth
Downtime can have an immediate, direct, and harmful impact on revenue. As businesses become more reliant on automation, the cost of losing a key service (e.g., messaging or databases) increases in severity. The easiest way to determine revenue loss is to determine which revenue-generating activities rely on your Windows servers (e.g., via an "impact matrix"). Based on the amount of revenue per minute that your Windows servers support, you can then determine the immediate revenue loss if a Windows server becomes unavailable. (This does not consider the long-term cost of the loss of customer confidence.)
Service Level Agreements
A Service Level Agreement (SLA) is a written agreement between two parties (e.g., an IT department and the e-commerce division, or between one company and another) that offers a minimal level of service. Quite often, an SLA is used to ensure that core services, such as email and databases, are properly managed and available to clients. Typically, SLA's include a penalty clause that costs the provider money in the event of a failure. The more often a system becomes unavailable, the higher the penalty. SLA's can especially impact infrastructure providers (e.g., telephone and network companies) as well as the financial industry. Business Continuity Business Continuity comprises the strategies and processes that a company takes to ensure that when a catastrophic event occurs (e.g., a hurricane destroys a corporation's headquarters), the business survives.
Business Continuity places a heavy dependence on high availability, particularly over a geographically separated area. This allows a business to continue operating even if the primary place of business is destroyed. Based on the needs of Business Continuity alone, high availability solutions are usually cost-justified.
A Brief Introduction to High Availability
Now that you understand the business case for high availability, let's briefly discuss the concept of "High Availability." High Availability (HA) has come to mean different things to different people, but the generally accepted definition for High Availability is the reduction or elimination of downtime for a service (e.g., a Web site).
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