{"id":589,"date":"2011-03-23T12:10:00","date_gmt":"2011-03-23T12:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"\/blogs\/paul\/post\/Human-nature-is-a-significant-hurdle-to-successful-disaster-recovery.aspx"},"modified":"2017-04-13T09:51:25","modified_gmt":"2017-04-13T16:51:25","slug":"human-nature-is-a-significant-hurdle-to-successful-disaster-recovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/human-nature-is-a-significant-hurdle-to-successful-disaster-recovery\/","title":{"rendered":"Human nature is a significant hurdle to successful disaster recovery"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">A few weeks&nbsp;ago I kicked off a survey about disaster recovery testing and how the plan copes with human factors. You can see the original survey <\/font><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/surveys-dr-plan-testing-and-considering-human-nature\/\"><font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">here<\/font><\/a><font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">This Dilbert cartoon is a pretty accurate portrayal of most clients&#39; disaster recovery plans when I first start working with them: <\/font><a href=\"http:\/\/dilbert.com\/strip\/2000-08-15\"><font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">http:\/\/dilbert.com\/strips\/comic\/2000-08-15\/<\/font><\/a><font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">.<\/font>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">Here are the survey results: <\/font>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">&nbsp;<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/3\/drtesting.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/> <\/font>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">The &quot;other&quot; responses are: <\/font>\n<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<div>\n\t<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">6 x As a company we haven&#39;t done it in decades + but I do test my backups every day. <\/font>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>\n\t<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">2&nbsp;x We have a dr strategy but know it&#39;s broken. <\/font>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>\n\t<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">1 x 4x per year, but no fixed schedule. <\/font>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\n<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">I&#39;m pretty disheartened by these results &#8211; only 41% of respondents test their DR plan at least once a year, but at least 80% of respondents actually *have* a DR plan. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">Apart from the obvious reason to test a DR plan initially so you know it works, it&#39;s very important to test it regularly as very often assumptions made when the DR plan was written are no longer valid. For instance, if the database size increased then it&#39;s going to take longer to restore, and so may break the RTO agreement with your management. What if someone made a change to the backup procedures and now your restore sequence is broken? What if you&#39;re not monitoring database mirroring correctly and the REDO queue on the mirror is such that a failover takes longer than the RTO? What if the backup generator is broken? The list goes on and on. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">I really didn&#39;t expect anyone to pick answer #4 &#8211; I&#39;m shocked. How can sane management include preventing the technologists from testing the plan that&#39;s going to potentially save the company if a disaster occurs? <\/font>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">One line I like to use as a consultant when talking to senior executives is: would you rather find out that your disaster recovery plan is broken through a controlled test when all the senior folks are standing by to put things right or when an actual disaster happens in the middle of the night on a public holiday when only the most junior folk are on duty and the chances of monetary losses are significant? <\/font>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">(Don&#39;t get me wrong &#8211; junior does not equal incompetent in any way in my book, but that&#39;s the kind of reasoning I&#39;ve found to work with senior executives in corporations who are far removed from the technological coal-face.) <\/font>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">So how does human nature factor in here? Well, it&#39;s human nature to not be worried about disaster recovery &#8211; until a disaster happens. It&#39;s kind of the &quot;out-of-sight, out-of-mind&quot; mentality. There&#39;s also the possibility that people know the DR plan sucks, but no-one wants to confront that fact and have to go fix it &#8211; this is sheer&nbsp;irresponsibility on someone&#39;s part (maybe not the DBA if they&#39;re not given the time to go fix it). There&#39;s also the &quot;in won&#39;t ever happen to me&quot; mentality. How many of you reading this post have walked around your house with a video camera making note of your belongings in case your house is destroyed? I know I haven&#39;t gotten around to it yet &#8211; it keeps getting pushed down the to-do list. It takes an effort of willpower to make these things bubble to the top of the to-do list and stop procrastinating. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">Go test your disaster recovery plan &#8211; you&#39;ll be amazed at what you&#39;ll find is broken. I wrote a blog post about this back in 2009 after conducting a survey of what people discovered when testing their DR plan &#8211; see <\/font><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/importance-of-testing-your-disaster-recovery-plan\/\"><font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">here<\/font><\/a><font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">&nbsp;<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/3\/drtesting2.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/> <\/font>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">The &quot;other&quot; responses are: <\/font>\n<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<div>\n\t<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">1 x I am so not coming to work on that day. <\/font>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>\n\t<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">1 x Our DR site is 1200 miles away, but assumes compliance by the DR site folks. A nationwide disaster would be tough to overcome. <\/font>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\n<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">These results are not surprising at all. The majority of companies do not consider human nature during a disaster. Saying that, however, I think a distinction should be made between countries that are highly disaster-prepared and disaster-conscious, like Japan, and countries that in general aren&#39;t, like the US (go read <\/font><a href=\"http:\/\/www.kalzumeus.com\/2011\/03\/13\/some-perspective-on-the-japan-earthquake\/\"><font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">this blog post<\/font><\/a><font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\"> that discusses Japanese disaster preparedness if you think I&#39;m wrong here).<\/font>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">I think it comes down to what I said above: &quot;it won&#39;t happen to us&quot;. Most DR plans that I&#39;ve seen assume that the disaster being recovered from is one that&#39;s only affecting that company and isn&#39;t affecting the personal lives of those responsible for doing the disaster recovery. But in a widespread disaster most people are going to be focusing on themselves and their family, not thinking about whether the production database is still available. Does your company realize that?<\/font>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">Time to rethink your disaster recovery plan? No-one else is going to do it for you&#8230; that&#39;s human nature.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A few weeks&nbsp;ago I kicked off a survey about disaster recovery testing and how the plan copes with human factors. You can see the original survey here. This Dilbert cartoon is a pretty accurate portrayal of most clients&#39; disaster recovery plans when I first start working with them: http:\/\/dilbert.com\/strips\/comic\/2000-08-15\/. Here are the survey results: &nbsp; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-disaster-recovery","category-surveys"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Human nature is a significant hurdle to successful disaster recovery - Paul S. 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