When we build systems, it’s never what we expect that causes the problems, it’s the unexpected that eventually causes problems. For example, this news article demonstrates why we need to try to prepare for the unexpected. Of course, with OpenVMS it is quite possible to build a split site cluster to provide greater disaster tolerance.
But the eruption of a volcano would cover more territory than a split site cluster. In that case, a business requires a two fold strategy. I tend to think of this as a strategy to provide disaster tolerance and one to handle disaster recovery.
Hopefully the first strategy allows the business to keep functioning with minimal or no interruption in the event of a problem. Think of this as Disaster Tolerance.
Sometimes some natural or man-made disaster impacts an entire metropolitan area and the Disaster Tolerant setup can not provide the resilience needed. Then we turn to Disaster Recovery, where the business should be ready to restart operations as quickly as needed.
This two fold approach is exactly what most financial institutions in the United States developed after 9/11 and in response to the “Interagency Paper on Sound Practices to Strengthen the Resilience of the U.S. Financial System“.
Thus, no matter who makes the storage array (You were wondering how this deals with storage, weren’t you?), one array does not suffice for Mission Critical data and applications. Period.
With 30 years experience, John harmonizes OpenVMS, Linux and VMware with storage.
