Implement High Availability for Mission Critical Databases
Where “good enough” availability just isn’t good enough, ensure business requirements will be met before investing in people, processes, and technology for true high availability.
- For most systems, efficient backup/recovery processes and technology will meet recovery time objectives (RTO) and recovery point objectives (RPO).
- Mission critical databases support services that have an immediate, direct, and significant impact on revenue, goodwill, health and safety, and regulatory compliance. They require more attention than other systems.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
- Database high availability technology solutions are expensive and complex, and will have a significant impact on the way the system is managed in the future.
- Downtime is often caused by people and process problems, but organizations tend to focus only on technology solutions.
Impact and Result
- Identify the business impact of downtime on the services supported by each database workload. Use a business impact analysis (BIA) to identify the criticality of the databases.
- Identify databases that require both near zero downtime and zero data loss. Only these mission critical database systems should be considered for a true high availability solution.
- Review and evaluate database HA solutions that fit your environment to identify a shortlist of potentially feasible solutions.
- Create a business case that outlines the required steps, effort, cost, and impact of a potential solution to obtain business approval. This will also ensure a clear understanding with the business regarding expected results and accepted risks.
Member Testimonials
After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real-time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve. See our top member experiences for this blueprint and what our clients have to say.
Client
Experience
Impact
$ Saved
Days Saved
Office of the Attorney General
Guided Implementation
10/10
$61,979
20
The calls with the analyst was helpful and pleasant. The analyst was able to give practical examples and explanations to help us understand the co... Read More
Workshop: Implement High Availability for Mission Critical Databases
Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.
Module 1: Create the Business Impact Analysis
The Purpose
- Identify required recovery time objective (RTO) and recovery point objective (RPO) for critical databases.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Complete a Business Impact Analysis.
Activities
Outputs
Review critical applications and dependencies.
- Business Impact Analysis
Define an objective scoring scale to indicate different levels of impact.
Estimate the impact of downtime.
Determine desired RTO/RPO objectives based on business impact.
Module 2: Determine Gaps Between Current and Desired Capabilities
The Purpose
- Identify gaps between current and desired capabilities.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Complete a response and recovery workflow.
Activities
Outputs
Conduct a tabletop exercise to determine current recovery procedures.
- Incident response and recovery workflow
Identify gaps between current and desired capabilities.
Identify where the database is a roadblock to system recovery.
Module 3: Review Availability Solutions
The Purpose
- Review possible technological solutions.
- Shortlist solutions and architectures based on cost, effort to implement, and benefit.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Technological high availability options defined and assessed.
Activities
Outputs
Review options to improve database availability.
- High Availability Solution Evaluation
For mission critical databases, review high availability solutions.
Assess solutions based on cost, effort, and benefit.
Module 4: Strengthen Processes to Support Availability
The Purpose
- Address people and process requirements for database high availability.
- Ensure the required stakeholders are consulted on proposed process changes.
- Communicate the value proposition to stakeholders.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Create the action plan to develop people and processes to support databases high availability.
- Develop the business case for a high availability deployment.
Activities
Outputs
Identify process and control changes required ahead of a high availability deployment
- Action Item Checklist
Review the 6-year TCO for a high availability deployment.
Develop a business case for the proposed high availability solution.
- Business Case
About Info-Tech
Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.
We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.
What Is a Blueprint?
A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your IT problems.
Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.
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Get the help you need in this 3-phase advisory process. You'll receive 8 touchpoints with our researchers, all included in your membership.
Guided Implementation 1: Identify business requirements for database availability
- Call 1: Work through Info-Tech’s BIA methodology.
- Call 2: Create a recovery timeline and identify database bottlenecks.
- Call 3: Assess whether HA is required in your environment.
Guided Implementation 2: Review and assess HA solutions
- Call 1: Review HA solutions.
- Call 2: Review and assess HA architectures.
Guided Implementation 3: Create an action plan for database high availability
- Call 1: Set the scope for process changes.
- Call 2: Review migration risks.
- Call 3: Review make-the-case documentation and budget estimates.
Contributors
- Steve Vereschagin, Senior Manager Enterprise Applications, Graymont
- Vince Bennett, Infrastructure Manager, Graymont
- Chuck Salvo, Founder and CEO, Red Brick Data
- Harish Vaidyanathan, Business Unit Head – IT Infra, Emerio
- Dilpreet Kaur, Senior SQL Server DBA, Merck
- Satwinder Singh, Supervising Associate – Database Administration, EY
- Mark Gribler, Oracle and SQL Database Consultant
- Michelle McLean, VP Marketing, ScaleArc
- Pardeep Dhull, Database Consultant, Capital One
- Ebenezer Akusaki, SQL Server DBA, UBS
- Brandon Frenchak, BI Specialist, Prince Minerals Inc
- One anonymous contributor
Manage Your Capacity to Increase Your Availability