System and method to proactively and intelligently schedule disaster recovery (DR) drill(s)/test(s) in computing system environment
View Patent ↗A system and method for proactively and intelligently scheduling Disaster Recovery (DR) drill(s)/test(s) for application, a set of applications or entire site in a computing system environment, the system comprising: one or more Drill Intelligence Modules logically connected to one or more Production Sites and one or more Disaster Recovery Sites, one or more Replication Systems logically connected to said Drill Intelligence Module, said Production Site and said Disaster Recovery Site, a Network connecting said Drill Intelligence Module with the Production Site, said Disaster Recovery Site and said Replication system wherein said Drill Intelligence Module is provided with at least one Configuration Monitoring Module, at least one Application Load Monitoring Module, at least one Drill Tracker Module and at least one Drill Advisor Module.
1. A method for using a configuration monitoring system for scheduling a disaster recovery drill/test for a production site comprising a plurality of production computer equipment equipped with applications that are regularly updated for replicating with a recovery site comprising a plurality of recovery computer equipment configured to replicate the functionality of the production site, said configuration monitoring system comprising a computer system configured for executing software applications for automatically performing the steps of:
storing in the computer system a list of applications used at said production site;
storing in the computer system user policies related to user preferences for drill/test scheduling;
storing in the computer system a list of scheduled drills/tests for replicating said production site with said recovery site;
determining the next scheduled drill/test from said list of scheduled drills/tests;
determining, based on evaluating the user policies and the list of applications, whether the next scheduled drill/test satisfies the user policies and if not scheduling a new drill/test, wherein if the next scheduled drill/test satisfies the user policies, performing the steps of:
obtaining, from the production site over a communication network, a list of changes implemented at the production site that have occurred since a preceding drill/test,
assigning a severity level to each change on the list of changes, wherein said severity level ranges up to a critical level, and
if any of the changes on the list of changes is assigned to the critical level scheduling a new drill/test, otherwise determining whether the compilation of severity levels exceeds a predetermined value, in which case performing the step of scheduling a new drill/test;
and if no new drill/test has been scheduled, continue to follow the list of scheduled drills/tests without any new drill/test being scheduled.
2. The method as claimed in claim 1 , further comprising a step of accumulating changes since the immediately preceding drill/test to determine if the next scheduled drill/test satisfies said user policy.
3. The method as claimed in claim 1 , further comprising a step of checking the user policy defining a drill window/slot for re-scheduling the drill/test if the next scheduled drill/test does not satisfy the user policy set.
4. The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein a severity level of “CRITICAL” and “WARNING” is determined on the basis of a weight/value of each change in the list of changes.
5. The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the pre-determined value to re-schedule the drill(s)/test(s) is stored in a Drill Advisor Module.
6. The method as claimed in claim 1 , further comprising the steps of:
checking the user policy defining a drill window/slot for re-scheduling the drill/test if the next scheduled drill/test does not satisfy the user policy set;
picking the next window/slot for re-scheduling the drill/test available in the user policy set;
checking and finding the next window/slot with the least server load in the system if the user policy does not define a window/slot for re-scheduling drill(s)/test(s);
updating the list of scheduled drills/tests with any updates to the schedule of drill(s)/test(s) obtained by this method.
7. The method as claimed in claim 6 , further comprising the step of checking a daily limit of the number of drill(s)/test(s) to be conducted on a particular day.
8. The method as claimed in claim 7 , further comprising the step of picking a next available window/slot defined in said user policy when the number of drill(s)/test(s) to be conducted on a particular day exceeds the daily limit.
9. The method as claimed in claim 8 , further comprising the step of updating the list of scheduled drills/tests and update a Drill Tracker Module with the new schedule of drill(s)/test(s).
10. The method as claimed in claim 7 , further comprising the step of picking a next window/slot with the least server load in the system when the number of drill(s)/test(s) to be conducted on a particular day exceeds the daily limit.
11. A method for using a configuration monitoring system for scheduling a disaster recovery drill/test for a production site comprising a plurality of production computer equipment equipped with applications that are regularly updated for replicating with a recovery site comprising a plurality of recovery computer equipment configured to replicate the functionality of the production site, said configuration monitoring system comprising a computer system configured for executing software applications for automatically performing the steps of:
storing in the computer system a list of applications used at said production site;
storing in the computer system user policies related to user preferences for drill/test scheduling;
storing in the computer system a list of scheduled drills/tests for replicating said production site with said recovery site;
determining the next scheduled drill/test from said list of scheduled drills/tests;
determining, based on evaluating the user policies and the list of applications, whether the next scheduled drill/test satisfies the user policies and if not scheduling a new drill/test, wherein if the next scheduled drill/test satisfies the user policies, performing the steps of:
obtaining, from the production site over a communication network, a list of changes implemented at the production site that have occurred since a preceding drill/test,
assigning a severity level to each change on the list of changes, wherein said severity level ranges up to a critical level, and
if any of the changes on the list of changes is assigned to the critical level scheduling a new drill/test, otherwise determining whether the compilation of severity levels exceeds a predetermined value, in which case performing the step of scheduling a new drill/test;
if the user policy defines slots for drill/tests, selecting the next available slot for the drills/tests otherwise select a slot with the least server load;
determining if system resources are overloaded by a scheduled drill/test, and if so, rescheduling that drill/test; and
updating the list of scheduled drills/tests to include any new and/or rescheduled drill(s)/test(s).