What Is Data Center Survivability?

Survivability, also referred to as resiliency, is the capability of a system to quickly recover and continue operation despite multiple equipment failures, power outages, or other general disruptions. Data centers are typically made survivable through a combination of redundant hardware, mirrored data storage, and accompanying IT maintenance procedures that ensure continued integrity after changes to a company’s network architecture.

Why Is Data Center Survivability Important?

Critical functions like payroll, inventory management, and sales all depend on an extensive and interlinked network of instantly accessible data. Without data, most businesses can’t function. Furthermore, as reliance on data has grown, so have the potential vulnerabilities. Networks rely on a complex array of hardware and are vulnerable to an ever-growing threat of malware infection. Moreover, the more geographically spread out your team becomes, the higher the risk that simple human error can compromise data integrity. Data center survivability is a crucial risk-mitigation strategy to protect your business operations against these and similar threats.

How Does Data Center Survivability Work?

Data center survivability depends on how your systems are uniquely configured. However, for the most part, system survivability hinges on two identical systems running in parallel. At any given moment, either system can be set as your company’s primary data source. Crucially, this switch from one system to another is practically instantaneous. No change whatsoever would occur at your team’s devices, and they should notice no disruption even in the event of catastrophic hardware failure at the network level.

Advantages of Data Center Survivability

• Better overall system performance: It’s easier to perform routine maintenance on a survivable data center. More frequent and thorough maintenance equates to better system performance.

• Greater reliability: The goal of a resilient system is that it produces zero (or as close as practically possible to zero) downtime. Data center survivability means no unexpected loss of business from data failure.

• Significantly reduced risk: Ultimately, data center survivability dramatically reduces risk, and this, in turn, better positions your business to plan for the future.