Is SMB disaster recovery really within reach?

Computer Technology Review,  Feb, 2005  by Brendan Kinkade

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The need for business continuity and the data protection required to support disaster recovery initiatives cuts across companies of all size, in every industry, and across states and countries. The network complexity associated with typical business continuity solutions has greatly eased over the past 5 years, and solutions are now available that have simplified earlier approaches to deliver the protection needed by larger organizations. But what of the disaster recovery needs of small to mid-size businesses (SMBs)--are they really within reach? The data protection requirements of these businesses can be just as critical as the needs of enterprise organizations, yet the disaster recovery and business continuity solutions that are contemplated by SMBs can easily be constrained due to complexity, manpower requirements and cost issues.

Can SMBs effectively create and deploy a centralized and continuously available storage infrastructure that ensures business continuity at a cost efficient price? The answer is a resounding "yes"--if approached in a phased and structured manner that ensures flexibility while maximizing the company's existing infrastructure investment.

To begin the process, it is important to create an overall data protection plan that consciously examines the current and overall corporate network infrastructure under a blinding white spotlight. Are there any single points of failure in the network that need to be addressed? Is there older technology in the network that would impede bringing information back online in case of data corruption or damage? And can access to data be provided (in minutes, rather than hours) to employees, regardless of location?

These are the questions that Thompson Hine LLP used to begin the process of creating a robust and highly cost-effective solution to address their data protection and disaster recovery needs. Thompson Hine, a law firm with approximately 350 lawyers and 600 support staff, sought a solution that would allow them to protect and manage data across its lifecycle, creating a centralized storage infrastructure to ensure business continuity.

Established in 1911, Thompson Hine today is among the largest business law firms in the U.S. with offices in Brussels, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, New York, and Washington, D.C. For the last three years, the firm has been named as one of the Best Corporate Law Firms in America (in an annual survey of 32,000 corporate directors conducted by Corporate Board Member magazine). Thompson Hine serves some of the premier businesses in the world, including: Ford, Toyota, Goodrich, Goodyear, Eaton, Sherwin-Williams, JoAnn Stores, Verizon and KeyCorp.

Like many other companies, they rely on e-mail for day-to-day business operations, as their clients choose to communicate as much through e-mail as by any other means. The firm also has an extensive document library that contains client-centric attorney work product, and the need to protect this client data (effectively and efficiently) was the cornerstone of the project.

Understanding that access to and protection of client-critical data (both e-mail and library materials) was paramount to the firm's leadership and success, Thompson Hine sought a centralized means of ensuring that its business-critical data was continuously available. Spurred by the sudden failure of a Brocade switch in their Cleveland SAN, Thompson Hine executives decided to merge the disaster recovery plans that were in the process of development with a data protection strategy that would protect primary data locally at each office (either on SAN or direct attach storage) and would efficiently replicate data from their six offices to multiple off-site locations.

Shining a Bright Light on the Process

Examining their current network environment and assessing requirements for primary and secondary data locations, the firm's IT leadership established several main objectives as the overarching requirements needed to create a solution that would ensure business continuity in the event of data damage or disaster. These objectives included:

* Utilize the existing infrastructure as the foundation for the solution to reduce overall costs

* Eliminate single points of failure in the network

* Identify and protect critical data, deploying a solution that allowed immediate access to data as needed

* Make critical e-mail and document data available from anywhere to allow continuation of ongoing work

* Provide workspace and standby office areas in case of damage to existing facilities.

Recognizing the challenges associated with deploying a comprehensive data protection solution for multiple locations, Thompson Hine chose to roll out their solution in a phased approach. While this approach may take slightly longer to complete, it brought several advantages to the table that SMBs can appreciate. A phased deployment allows implementation in segments to minimize the cash needed up front, brings a way to take advantage of new technologies as they become available, and gives companies the ability to begin project rollouts while formalizing their plans. Most importantly, a phased approach can allow a smaller company to accomplish what needs to be achieved, in this case, freeing up IT resources to work on multiple projects while the data protection/disaster recovery deployment was underway.