Disaster Recovery: Workstation

Have you ever considered how long it takes to rebuild a workstation? 2 hours is a the common answer. But when you start to think about it, that initial 2 hours can quickly turn into days rather than hours.

Take a look at the following picture

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(click the image to enlarge)

When you start to think about it its pretty easy to see how 2 hours could be come 2 days or longer. Without automation and well documented procedures recovering from workstation failure can be a pretty miserable affair.

Lets look at a typical scenario which could be any company in any town..... ..

DAY1

For the purpose of this scenario, imagine its your boss's PC.

Boss comes in and says his PC has stopped working. Drop your 101 other priorities and send a tech support chap along to look at the problem. Try a quick fix, reboot the machine, try a few changes, look in the registry (if not completely toasted). Tentatively ask your boss what he was doing when the PC crashed. Keep a straight face.

Try Safe mode, reboot a few times.

Eventually give in to inevitability and decide to rebuild the PC. Mumble a few times and then tell the boss, you'll be back in a while to reinstall the OS.

Walk back to IT room. Search for Operating system CD. Ask who's pinched the master copy, then take one you' have in your brief case and go back to reinstall PC.

DAY2

Reformat the hard drive, and then reinstall Windows. Prompted for License information. Doh!

Go find license number, return and complete installation.

Dig out out MS office CD and install Office with the default settings.

Install NetWare Client (ok so perhaps you might do this before MS Office)

Install printer driver and finally re-configure Email

Ok, so the Boss's PC is now backup and running. Time to concentrate on some more productive work.

Oh no... Email message from Boss says his accounts application is not working.

Dig out the information, go visit the boss, and install the client software for the accounts system.

Another message!

It's the boss again, this time he can't print in colour. Back again with HP 4500 colour laser driver CD. Superman does it again. Try that.

Nope the printer is asking to insert Letter.

Ok, lets have a look at Word. Ah, see your paper size is set to letter. You need to change it to A4.

Change Excel whilst there also and configure print driver to accept A4 by default.

Oops! nearly forgot. Install Antivirus update. There sorted.

3 hours later Another Message!
Can't open attachment. Ok I'll take a look. Disappear once more into the boss's hide away. Ah its PDF document, we need to install Adobe Acrobat reader. I'll get the CD.....

Ok , so it may not be quite like that in your organisation, but just how long does it take you to recover?
What documentation do you follow? What automation techniques have you installed?

Having an effective Disaster Recovery procedure is one of the essential components of a ZEUS business environment.

If you would like help in developing & documenting your disaster recovery procedures email us.

So just how long does it take? see for yourself......................