High Availability and Disaster Recovery - Concepts, Design, Implementation

Jul 31, 2026

This book explains high availability and disaster recovery as an end-to-end discipline, linking requirements, architecture development, planning, implementation, and operations. It addresses common misunderstandings among customers, planners, and vendors, clarifying what can realistically be achieved and where limitations lie. It also provides a structured approach from failure-scenario identification to selecting solutions driven by process rather than short-lived product claims, enabling stakeholders to share a common language and manage expectations.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryTechnology

FormatPDF

Pages417

Reading Time17 h 31 min

AccessFree to download

Preface

Introduction

Audience

Roadmap of This Book

Real-World Examples

Elementary Concepts

Business Issues

Business Continuity as the Overall Goal

Regulatory Compliance and Risk Management

System and Outage Categorization

High Availability – Handling Minor Outages

Availability

Reliability

Serviceability

Disaster Recovery – Handling Major Outages

Quantifying Availability: 99.9... % and Reality

Service Level Agreements

Basic Approach: Robustness and Redundancy

Layered Solution with Multiple Precautions

Summary

Architecture

Objectives

Conceptual Model

System Model

System Design

High Availability and Disaster Recovery Klaus Schmidt High Availability and Disaster Recovery Concepts, Design, Implementation With 83 Figures and 26 Tables 1 3 Klaus Schmidt Stockheimer Str. 20 60385 Frankfurt Germany [klaus.schmidt@eds.com](klaus.schmidt@eds.com) Library of Congress Control Number: 2006925341 ISBN-10 3-540-24460-3 Springer Berlin Heidelberg New York ISBN-13 978-3-540-24460-8 Springer Berlin Heidelberg New York This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, speciﬁcally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microﬁlm or in any other way, and storage in data banks. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the German Copyright Law of September 9, 1965, in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from Springer. Violations are liable for prosecution under the German Copyright Law. Springer is a part of Springer Science+Business Media [springer.com](springer.com) © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006 Printed in Germany The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a speciﬁc statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. Typesetting: Joachim Schrod, Net & Publication Consultance GmbH, Rödermark Production: LE-TEX Jelonek, Schmidt & Vöckler GbR, Leipzig Cover design: KünkelLopka Werbeagentur, Heidelberg Printed on acid-free paper 45/3142/YL-5 43210 For Helga, Andreas, and Katrin Preface During the last 15 years I was involved in planning, deployment, and operations of IT systems for major companies. Those systems are missioncritical: the customers’ business depends on their availability. The systems are required to be highly available and to protect against all kinds of problems, like hardware failures, software issues, human errors, through to physical disasters. I learned that there are misunderstandings between customers, planners, and vendors about what high availability is, what can be achieved with IT systems, and where their limitations are. I also recognized that disaster recovery is only a feature of high availability, but is often seen asan independent topic. This book addresses this area with an end-to-end view and makes it available as single piece of material: from requirements gathering to planning, implementation, and operations. Another missing piece is supplied, an approach to develop an architecture which leads to highly available systems that are robust and are able to recover from the relevant failure scenarios. But identiﬁcation of failure scenarios is still a kind of art, mostly based on individual experiences. Selection of a solution is driven by a process, and not by products that claim protection but do not consider the whole picture. With that end-to-end view, we get a structured approach that leads from requirements to possible failure scenarios to a successful solution. That was the motivation to write this book. It addresses these topics and is targeted at all parties involved, enabling them to speak a common language and manage their mutual expectations. The goal of this book is to explain and discuss architecture, technology, solutions, and processes. Since products and features are too short lived for the aim of this book, it does not review, compare, or recommend any particular products. VIII Preface I thank my employer Electronic Data Systems (EDS) for the excellent work environment that I have had over many years, for a very successful working relationship, and for support in writing this book. I would like to thank the following friends and colleagues for their fruitful discussions, guidance, and reviews: J. Bankstahl (EDS), F. Haberhauer (Sun), H. Haupt (AES)

FAQs

What problem does the book address regarding high availability and disaster recovery?

It targets misunderstandings between customers, planners, and vendors about what high availability means, what is achievable, and its limitations. It also distinguishes disaster recovery as a feature within high availability rather than an independent topic.

How does the book structure the path from requirements to solutions?

It provides an end-to-end, structured approach that starts with requirements gathering, leads to identifying relevant failure scenarios, and then guides planning, implementation, and operations toward successful solutions.

Does the book focus on specific vendor products?

No. Since products and features change quickly, it does not review, compare, or recommend particular products. Instead, it emphasizes architecture, technology, solutions, and processes.

Jul 31, 2026

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