How It Works | Essential Data Services

How It Works

In the event your server crashes we will protect your valuable data.

Disaster Recovery Server System (DRS system) is a feature-rich appliance that comes preloaded with all of the backup, recovery and virtualization software you need to enhance your existing backup and business continuity strategy.

First, the DRS device acts as a standby failover server, providing complete application and data backup and flexible restore options. If one of your servers fails, the DRS can be configured in as little as two hours to act as a replacement server, saving you time and headaches by letting your business carry on.

Second, it acts as a backup server on your network, taking snapshots of your data frequently throughout the day. When a DRS is installed in your office along side your traditional Exchange, File and Database servers, an initial base image from each server is saved onto the DRS device. Afterwards, any incremental changes in the image are captured in a snapshot.

By taking snapshots of the data from each server every 15 minutes, the DRS device eliminates the time-consuming chore of tape recovery which can take as long as 72 hours, by the time a failed server gets rebuilt.

Restoring data from our DRS device can take as little as minutes, from any point in time during the day, to recover lost folders, files, and even individual e-mails.

For example:

  • A spreadsheet is created at 10:00 AM, upon which several hours of work is completed.
  • At 3:00 PM the file is accidentally deleted.
  • Because multiple backups ran throughout the day, the lost file can be restored by 4:00 PM by simply finding a recent snapshot of the data that had been taken.

Restore to Dissimilar Hardware

In the event that a replacement server needs to be installed following a data loss, the saved image of your data from the DRS can be quickly loaded onto the replacement unit, no matter what the model or make, in a fraction of the time it takes to rebuild a new server, letting you get back to business faster. This provides flexibility for restorations without the cost and effort to keep a failover server ready at all times.

Incremental Backups

After the base image or initial backup of your server has been created, all future backups are incremental. Incremental backups run based on your preferred frequency.

For example, if you select 24/7 backups in 15 minute increments, 96 incremental files will be created each day. Alternatively, if you select one-hour increments, 24 incremental files will be created each day.

Incremental backups greatly reduce the backup window while also increasing the speed of data restoration.

For additional protection, your backed up data will be encrypted and stored in our secure off-site data centre, utilizing the same security features employed in our advanced Remote Backup Services.

Flexible Recovery Options

Because the server takes a snap-shot of your server image every 15 minutes, you have the option to choose a point in time from which to recover your data. By not being limited to restore only the latest version of your data, you have the added flexibility to restore entire volumes or simply individual e-mails of earlier versions.

On-site and Off-site Solution with Multiple Restore Points

Multiple Disaster Recovery Server devices can be placed on your network. Each Disaster Recovery server, depending on the model, can then be configured to back up one single server or multiple servers giving you multiple levels of redundancy.

We simplify the entire restore process for you by making sure that you don’t need to go back in time any more than necessary.

Daily Monitoring and Management

Traditional backup solutions often require several hours each week of sorting through alerts and troubleshooting, not to mention the additional time that is needed to support various end-user requests for file restoration.

With our DRS Solution, your technical resources will be available for other more profitable uses because we handle all of the monitoring and management for you.

Our Monitoring and Management Services include:

  • Monitoring for failed backups
  • Hardware Monitoring
  • Server Failover Support
  • Data Integrity Checks
  • Bare Metal Restore Support