RE: IBM i Hosting - Disaster Recovery

<snip>
Communications are another big piece of the recovery. Waking up the
recovery machine is one thing; being able to talk to it is another!
</snip>
This is huge! That is one of my biggest problems with "grab the tapes and
run" recoveries. The days of loading the diskettes from the
key-to-diskette machine to do your data entry are long gone. Will the
grab the tapes and run recovery:
- allow people to punch in
- talk to shop floor equipment.
- allow receivers/shippers to scan in product
- allow the people to load from their IFS share
Many of these grab the tapes and run recovery sites will give you a lower
hardware than what you're used to in production. For us our production is
usually overkill so perhaps we could have tolerated that. But dropping
our comm down to a 2400 baud modem? No way. Not a problem with our
current set up. Tested.
And the external web balancer already balances between sites.

Did get a nice guided fishing trip out of looking at a "grab your tapes
and run" solution though. Steelhead in Michigan, nice.

Most of our office people are not in either DC. Not even a bulk of our
systems people. But if the main office takes a hit they could come to the
Indiana DC. After all, it used to be the main office. Now it's where old
office chairs come to die (and be ready to hold butts in an emergency).


Rob Berendt