If your backups aren’t up-to-date or are full of errors, you run the risk of losing data, but if the worst comes to the worst, you need to be able to ensure business continuity.
Server redundancy is all about the scope and intensity of backup, failover and redundant servers in an IT environment. It defines the capability of an IT infrastructure to deploy additional servers that can be used for maintenance purposes during backups, load balancing or if a backend server goes down.
Thanks to these redundancies, a company can guarantee the functionality of its data centre even if a component goes down. Data are duplicated especially for reasons of backup and recovery.
How do I set up a redundant computer system?
To optimally protect your data, the various types of redundancy should be combined:
- Drive redundancy;
- Server redundancy;
- Redundancy across several locations.
Redundancy can also be used to avoid restoring data. A company that doesn’t use redundancies can back up its data from an existing backup, but if this isn’t up-to-date, huge volumes of data can be lost between the last backup and recovery. If, however, you use redundant hard drives, you don’t have to recover data as it can all be easily found.
When installing redundant servers, you should choose a primary and secondary server. Ideally, with such a redundant system, you set up a primary backup server and another, secondary server that is only used if the first one fails.
Don’t wait until you have a real crisis to test your solutions. Make sure they are put through their paces regularly to see if you can really recover data regardless of the issue.
The cloud – A reliable alternative for companies?
Setting up reliable redundant IT systems for companies is not only expensive, but can be a real labour of love. These days, the cloud is a simple and effective way to protect data.
It is a web-based storage system that allows you to access your stored information wherever you are, as long as you have an internet connection. That means you no longer have to invest in hard drives, SD cards, USB flash drives or other storage hardware.