Why a Disaster Recovery Activation is So Much More Than a “Test”

By Kaleigh Alessandro | Tuesday, August 6th, 2013

As you know, we encourage our clients to regularly test their disaster recovery systems (at least twice a year!). But believe it or not, there is actually an even better preparation for a DR situation - a planned activation.

In recent years, Eze Castle has seen a large increase in requests for planned activations amoungst our hedge fund clients. Why? A few notable reasons include:

Compliance purposes
Investor due diligence requests
A desire for more comprehensive scenario-testing

“But isn’t a planned activation the same thing as a DR test?”

I thought you might ask that! Believe it or not, they are two very different scenarios. Here’s the basic difference:

Planned Activation: The DR site is actually active and in use, and replication back to the production site is required.
Test: The DR site is only being accessed and tested, and any changes made during the DR test are overwritten when replication is restarted.

Below are a few other distinctions between DR activations and DR tests.

Disaster Recovery: Activations vs. Tests

With a planned activation, your DR provider has the luxury of time to prepare for the failover and failback, as this is not an automatic process and does not occur with ‘the flip of a switch.’ In this case, the disaster recovery team has ample time to notify internal groups and third parties, identify any risks or key areas of focus, and secure necessary service resources.

While there are a lot of cogs in the DR wheel and parties involved in making sure your DR activation runs smoothly, here is a quick snapshot of what the activation process looks like on both ends:

Failover

Production services are disabled, including Exchange, SQL, Citrix, file shares, etc.
Replication is stopped from production to DR.
Applications are brought up in the DR site.
Clients work out of the DR site until test activation is completed.

Failback

Replication begins from DR to production.
Access to the DR site is closed.
All applications and services in DR are shut down.
Replication is completed between DR and production.
Service is restored in production and all applications are tested and verified.
Upon confirmation of restoration, replication is restarted from production to DR.

Our Eze Disaster Recovery Team works diligently with our hedge fund clients to plan activations and tests to meet the individual needs of each firm. You can learn more about our Eze DR service here.

Finally, you may also enjoy the following reference articles on hedge fund disaster recovery: