Disaster Recovery & Failover
When Your Servers Go Down, Your Organization Doesn't Have To.
Mayer Networks can replicate critical server workloads into our Carbondale datacenter so they are ready to be started from recovery infrastructure when your production environment becomes unavailable. With Veeam Backup & Replication, replication intervals can be designed as frequently as every 15 minutes depending on the workload, connectivity and recovery requirements.
Why replication matters
Downtime gets expensive fast.
Commercial organizations
Every hour offline is an hour of output
- Employees unable to work
- Lost revenue and missed transactions
- Production and shipping interruptions
- Customer service outages
- Business applications out of reach
- Lost productivity across every location
Government & public safety
Downtime is not simply inconvenient
- 911 and dispatch systems
- Police and fire operations
- Emergency services coordination
- Court and records systems
- County and municipal operations
- Public-facing government services
For organizations that serve the public, waiting hours or days for servers to be rebuilt may not be an acceptable recovery strategy.
Recovery has to be designed before the outage. Mayer Networks does not guarantee uninterrupted operations for any organization; what a design can do is decide in advance which systems come back first and where they run.
The distinction
A backup and a replicated server are not the same thing.
Backup
Purpose
Recover data and systems after something goes wrong.
“Restore what was lost.”
Replication
Purpose
Maintain a near-current copy of a running server workload in separate recovery infrastructure.
“Start another copy somewhere else.”
Failover
Purpose
Start replicated workloads in Mayer Networks infrastructure and give users a planned way to reach them.
“Keep operating while production is unavailable.”
Backups remain important, but restoring a backup and failing over to an already replicated workload solve different problems.
The sequence
How replication and failover work
Production runs where it always has. Veeam keeps a near-current copy of the workloads that matter in our Carbondale datacenter. When production is unavailable, those copies are started here.
Production environment
Your systems run normally.
- Hyper-V virtual machines
- Application servers
- SQL and database servers
- Line-of-business systems
Mayer Networks recovery infrastructure
Near-current replicated workloads are maintained in our Carbondale datacenter.
- Recovery compute
- Recovery storage
- Secure networking
- Replicated virtual machines
Replication can be scheduled as frequently as every 15 minutes for appropriately designed workloads.
Failover
Operations move to Mayer Networks.
- Replicated workloads are started in our infrastructure
- Recovery systems become the active environment
- Users follow the planned recovery access path
- Systems start in the documented recovery order
Failback
Return to production when you are ready.
- Primary infrastructure repaired or replaced
- Data created during failover accounted for
- Workloads returned on a planned schedule
- Handled as a controlled project, not an emergency
What triggers a failover
Disasters don't always look like disasters.
Ransomware or malware
Production systems may be encrypted, compromised or simply unsafe to keep running.
Server or storage failure
Critical production infrastructure can fail without warning and without a spare on the shelf.
Fire, flood or severe weather
A building or server room can become inaccessible even when the equipment itself survives.
Power or facility failure
Extended utility, cooling or environmental failures can make local infrastructure unusable.
Hardware damage
Storage arrays, hosts and other critical infrastructure can suffer catastrophic failure.
Site loss
Sometimes the physical location is simply unavailable, and nothing in it can be reached.
Not every event triggers a failover. Whether workloads are failed over depends on the event, which systems are affected, the recovery design and the documented plan.
Mayer Networks recovery infrastructure
Your recovery site should exist before you need it.
The worst time to figure out where critical systems will run is after production has already failed. Mayer Networks recovery environments are designed in advance, so replicated workloads already have compute, storage, networking and a documented recovery path waiting in our Carbondale datacenter.
Carbondale datacenter
Mayer Networks owns and operates the facility your replicas live in.
Recovery compute
Host capacity available to run replicated workloads.
Enterprise storage
Storage sized for the workloads in the recovery design.
Secure networking
Segmented networking and controlled access into recovery systems.
Veeam replication
Replication jobs configured per workload and monitored.
Documented recovery order
Which systems start first, written down before the outage.
Monitoring
Replication health watched rather than assumed.
Planned user access
How people reach recovered systems, designed in advance.
Mayer Networks operates the recovery infrastructure. Your workloads are not being handed to anonymous cloud storage.
Veeam Backup & Replication
The platform behind the replicated workloads described on this page.
The replication platform
Powered by Veeam Backup & Replication
Mayer Networks uses Veeam Backup & Replication to maintain replicated copies of supported virtual workloads in our recovery infrastructure.
- Virtual machine replication
- Configurable replication intervals
- Recovery infrastructure in the Mayer Networks datacenter
- Planned failover
- Planned failback
- Application and workload recovery prioritization
Veeam is a product Mayer Networks deploys and operates for customers. Veeam and the Veeam logo are trademarks of Veeam Software.
Recovery point
How much work can you afford to lose?
Example only
12:00
Production running
12:15
Replication
12:30
Replication
12:45
Replication
12:52
Production outage
Recovery workload starts at approximately the 12:45 state, so roughly seven minutes of work would need to be redone.
For environments designed for a 15-minute replication interval, the maximum recovery-point exposure is generally based on that scheduled interval. Actual results depend on replication completion, connectivity, workload behavior and the specific recovery design.
In planning language, how much data you can lose is the recovery point objective and how quickly systems must be running again is the recovery time objective. Both are written into the design rather than assumed.
Recovery design
Not every server has the same recovery priority.
Priority 1
Systems required immediately
The workloads the organization cannot operate without for even a short period. Highest replication frequency, first in the recovery order.
Priority 2
Important operational systems
Systems that matter to daily work but can tolerate a measured wait while the critical ones come up first.
Priority 3
Systems that can wait
Archival, reporting and administrative systems where a longer recovery is an acceptable, deliberate decision.
Recovery access
Starting the server is only half the recovery.
Secure network connectivity
Routed or private connectivity into the recovery environment.
Remote Desktop
Session access to recovered servers where that fits the application.
Hosted desktops
Full desktops running beside the recovered workloads in our datacenter.
VPN where appropriate
Client or site-to-site VPN chosen to match the environment.
Site-to-site connectivity
Office locations pointed at the recovery environment.
DNS and network changes
Name resolution and routing changes identified in advance.
Application-specific access
Some applications need their own client, port or published path.
We plan the recovery path before the outage, so the first question during a disaster is not “how do users connect?”
The access method is chosen per environment. Nothing on this list is promised for every customer.
Public sector continuity
Continuity obligations are easier to meet with a designed recovery site.
Counties, municipalities and public-safety agencies are routinely asked how operations continue when a server room is unavailable. Replication into Mayer Networks infrastructure gives that question a concrete answer: which systems are replicated, how often, where they run and in what order they come up.
Replication and failover are designed and priced per environment and are in place only where the agreement provides for them.
67 second video, captions available
Why continuity planning exists
A short explainer on what replication buys an organization after fire, theft or hardware loss. Treat it as background on the concept. The replication and failover architecture described on this page is the current and authoritative description of how Mayer Networks builds continuity.
Read the transcript
Is your business prepared for fire, theft, the unexpected? Studies show that nearly 40% of small businesses never reopen after a disaster. Being prepared can save you time and money and keep your customers coming in.
In the past, traditional disaster recovery solutions could cost small to mid-sized businesses as much as their entire annual IT budget, which left them stranded. With Windows Server, however, your business's important files and applications are replicated to either an off-site server or to the cloud, and changes are updated every five minutes.
If you're connecting to important business data and your system goes down, you can connect to your replicated server and restore your operations in a matter of hours or even minutes, so your business is back online without missing a beat. Be prepared if disaster strikes, and stay ahead of the game with Windows Server.
This is older general creative built around Windows Server replication. It illustrates the idea of continuity, not the current Mayer Networks service architecture. Replication intervals, recovery targets and platforms are set per design: Cove and Datto cover backup and recovery, and Veeam covers enterprise backup plus virtualization replication into Mayer Networks disaster-recovery infrastructure.
Disaster Recovery Works Alongside Backup
Disaster recovery complements, rather than replaces, a properly designed backup strategy. Replication helps restore operations quickly, while independent backup copies provide recovery points when data is deleted, corrupted, encrypted or otherwise compromised.
A replica that faithfully mirrors production will faithfully mirror a bad change too. That is why every disaster-recovery design we build sits on top of a backup design, and why the two are scoped, tested and reviewed together rather than sold as alternatives.
Learn About Backup & Data ProtectionReplication and failover are designed per environment and included only where an agreement provides for them.
Is this the same as backup?
No. Backup protects the data with offsite recovery copies. Disaster recovery provides infrastructure to run critical systems on when production is unavailable. Most organizations need backup; some also need replication.
Do all Mayer Networks clients get datacenter replication?
No. Replication is designed and priced per environment and is only in place where a customer's agreement includes it.
How fast is failover?
It depends on the design: what is replicated, on what interval, and how users reach the workloads. We measure and document it for your environment rather than quoting a universal number, and we do not promise zero downtime or zero data loss.
Where does the replicated data sit?
In Mayer Networks infrastructure in Carbondale. That is separate from where your backups live, which is offsite with the backup platform selected for your environment.
What happens after production is repaired?
Failback is part of the plan: workloads are moved back on a scheduled basis with the data written while in failover reconciled.
If Your Servers Disappeared Tonight, How Long Would You Be Down?
Backups are one part of recovery. For organizations that cannot wait hours or days to rebuild critical systems, Mayer Networks can design replication and failover into our Carbondale recovery infrastructure.