Developing a Disaster Recovery Plan
Disaster recovery planning should address the IT resources needed to maintain business continuity and restore full network functionality with minimal loss of productivity. The plan should anticipate a broad variety of disaster scenarios such as fires, storms, earthquakes, chemical accidents, flooding, loss of key personnel, equipment or system failure, and cyber crime.

You should assess the worst-case impact of each of these disaster scenarios on your network infrastructure and business processes and prioritize the areas that are most critical for you to protect in order to limit business disruption to an acceptable level. For each scenario, you should develop a recovery strategy that addresses your local and remote workers, customers, vendors, facilities, hardware and software, communication services, support contracts, and lead-times for replacing equipment and services and restoring data. Your recovery strategies should include specific action plans, escalation procedures, and data retention and restoration policies.

Building a Resilient Network Architecture
Network architecture is a crucial element of a disaster recovery strategy because some architectures are far more vulnerable to certain disaster scenarios than others. Resilient architectures are not necessarily more expensive than vulnerable ones and often provide higher performance and availability even in the course of normal, day-to-day operations. For example, if a business has five offices and maintains an in-house data center at the main office, then a fire at the data center effectively shuts down all five offices. Using a remote Data Center or multiple remote Data Centers could not only provide better protection from certain types of disasters but could also offer dramatically faster and more reliable Internet access to the entire business.

Testing a Disaster Recovery Plan
Testing and adjusting recovery plans for specific anticipated scenarios is another critical element of a viable disaster recovery program. The complexity of fault-tolerant networks requires rigorous testing to verify that a recovery plan is feasible and that assigned responsibilities are understood. Recovery exercises will show whether backed-up data can be usefully restored, alternative connectivity technology provides adequate performance under realistic loads, fault-tolerant technologies perform failover processes as planned, and IT staff knows what is expected. Testing exercises will help you identify weak points in your recovery plan so that you can make adjustments before disaster strikes.

Progent's disaster recovery consultants can help you create recovery plans, design a fault-tolerant network infrastructure, and conduct realistic test exercises. Progent's security specialists have earned prestigious certifications from global organizations such as CISA, CISM, CISSP, GIAC, and ISSAP. To be awarded credentials from these organizations, security consultants must have both proven experience and demonstrated knowledge of industry best practices for business continuity planning and disaster recovery. For more information about Progent's security engineers and their services, visit Network Security Services.

Other Fault Tolerant Solutions Offered by Progent
Progent's Microsoft and Cisco-certified consulting experts can help you create a cost-effective, non-stop environment that addresses major problems encompassing a wide range of infrastructure technologies and processes including:

24x7 Internet Connectivity Solutions
Progent's Cisco-authorized IT engineers can help you design an affordable, 24x7 Internet configuration architecture that can deliver 24x7 Internet access via a broad array of high availability Internet network solutions including non-stop BGP, automatic fail-over, and redundant ISPs. Progent can provide Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert professionals to show you how to utilize the most current techniques for fault tolerant Internet connectivity to implement an economical, completely redundant Internet network with automatic failover and other capabilities to deliver non-stop Internet availability. For more information, go to High Availability Internet Access Solutions

Microsoft Cluster Server
Progent offers Microsoft Windows 2003 Cluster Server expertise to help your organization implement high availability server clusters designed to deliver 24x7 uptime. Clustered Windows servers for high-availability networks include Microsoft Windows 2003 Cluster Server, Microsoft SQL Server Cluster, and Exchange Cluster. By helping you build non-stop server clustering solutions powered by Microsoft Windows Clustered Server 2003, Progent’s certified Windows engineers make sure that your high availability server clusters are configured to maximize the strategic advantage of your IT network. To read more, go to Microsoft Clustered Server Consulting.

High Availability Load Balancing
Progent offers high availability load balancing consulting that addresses network load balancing, load balanced programs, network backbone routing, and content delivery products such as Cisco Content Engine. Non-stop load balancing technologies for which Progent offers consulting services include Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Network Load Balancing Manager, Citrix Metaframe and Access Gateway, Cisco CSS, Cisco Content Distribution Manager and ACNS, and F5 Networks BIG-IP. For more information, visit High Availability Load Balancing.

Fault Tolerant Colocation
Progent's Data Center consultants can show you how to find high availability data centers that meet the particular requirements of your business. Fault tolerant Internet Data Centers are particularly attractive to small organizations due to of their affordability and simplified logistics compared to taking a do-it-yourself approach. Attempting to design an on-site data center that offers even a minimum degree of fault tolerance is financially prohibitive for typical small companies. Progent can help you reap all the advantages of non-stop data centers and 24x7 colo sites by providing a complete array of consulting and support services. For details, see High-Availability Data Centers Expertise.

Non-stop Interoffice Networking
Progent’s high availability inter-site connectivity and fault tolerant network infrastructure professionals can help small organizations achieve non-stop Interoffice connectivity by means of redundant networks featuring automatic failover. Progent’s Cisco-certified Cisco Certified Internetwork Experts can plan and deploy fault tolerant Inter-office connections based on fault tolerant EIGRP routers or fault tolerant OSPF deployment of Cisco routers. Progent can show you how multi-path connections and automatic fail-over offers affordable non-stop interoffice networking. For details, see Fault Tolerant Inter-office Networking.

Data Protection Manager (DPM) Backup and Restore Consultants
Progent's expert Microsoft DPM engineers can assist your company to create an effective disaster recovery plan, implement an affordable high-availability IT architecture, deploy a Microsoft Data Protection Manager-powered backup and restore solution, comprehensively validate your DPM system, train your IT personnel or regular service providers how to maintain Microsoft Data Protection Manager, or handle extensive information technology outsourcing services including remote housing of DPM servers in Progent's data center. To find out more, see Data Protection Manager Expertise.

Why You Should Select Progent
Since Progent is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and provides professional application consulting for a wide range of business software programs, Progent is able to help customers to find complete information technology solutions that maximize the business value of your IT network. As a Registered Partner with Cisco, Progent can provide the support of qualified engineers and specialists with expertise in designing, implementing and troubleshooting networking solutions based on Cisco Systems technology. The depth of Progent's IT experience and Progent's appreciation for the needs of small companies make Progent the perfect resource for creating and running a cost-effective, fault-tolerant network.

How to Contact Progent's Consultants for Non-stop Network Services
If you wish to get in touch with Progent about engineering support for fault tolerant infrastructure, phone 1-800-993-9400 or email fault-tolerant-help@progent.com.