1. NOAA WEBShop 20041 A low-cost standby system for an OAR-wide budgeting application Eugene F. Burger (NOAA/PMEL/JISAO) NOAA WebShop July 27-29 Philadelphia PA

2. NOAA WEBShop 20042 Overview  The systems in question  Existing contingency planning  The type of standby system we chose  Alternatives  Architecture  Implementation  Recovery scenario

3. NOAA WEBShop 20043 The challenge  Continuation of Operations (COOP) planning is a requirement with all operational systems.  Backups  Full standby system

4. NOAA WEBShop 20044 FDMS is OE ORTA PO Financial Data Management System OAR Commitment tracking system Supports NOAA business practices Operational since January 2001 Envisioned as the “core” element of the NOAA Research Science Management Information System

5. NOAA WEBShop 20045 FDMS is  FDMS built on Access  Source data bases MS SQLServer Oracle 8i (soon 9i)  Server through Citrix Secure Gateway and Citrix Metaframe  Daily downloads of CAMS data to FDMS

6. NOAA WEBShop 20046 FDMS Server architecture

7. NOAA WEBShop 20047 Existing precautions  Redundancy in server storage devices RAID 5 disk array’s with spare drive’s  Database backups  Backups of backups  Offsite backups

8. NOAA WEBShop 20048 Objective  Investigate options To provide a low cost contingency (failover) system  Addresses potential disaster scenario: operations in Seattle are disastrously disrupted (earthquake) backup tape recovery difficult network infrastructure disrupted FDMS recovery period of 7 to 14 days is tolerable  Although application not critical to NOAA’s mission  Downtime will cause administrative disruption

9. NOAA WEBShop 20049 Options Full FDMS standby system Complete replication of the FDMS infrastructure  Cost  Backups What about catastrophic disaster?  Backups and replication

10. NOAA WEBShop 200410 Our choice  Remote storage device with complete application and data file replication Lower cost Lower maintenance overheard More infrastructure flexibility  When we change hardware or software infrastructure

11. NOAA WEBShop 200411 Recovery scenario  Purchase new hardware (server) infrastructure CSG Application Web Database  Install and configure applications FDMS DB Servers Active directory Citrix

12. NOAA WEBShop 200412 Recovery scenario  Two options Serve data from NAS box Copy data files to Server

13. NOAA WEBShop 200413 Replication challenges  Replicate everything needed to rebuild system Multiple server machine state Active directory Relational databases (Oracle 9i & SQL Server)  Database user information encapsulated in backups MS Access data files FDMS application data FDMS tools FDMS Documentation Citrix application Citrix configuration information  System restore documentation

14. NOAA WEBShop 200414 Standby infrastructure  Hardware NAS Box  Software Mirroring software  Extensive and detailed documentation Installation information Data linking Server configuration

15. NOAA WEBShop 200415 Replication infrastructure

16. NOAA WEBShop 200416 Hardware considerations  Network Attached Storage device IOMega 320Gb NAS Cheaper than a full server  $2k vs. $12k Server could be obsolete by the time it is needed Chose windows OS to sync with the FDMS application platform

17. NOAA WEBShop 200417 Mirroring software requirements  Mirror over the internet  Transport encryption Including authentication  Differential mirroring  Continuous file replication  Multiple channels per file

18. NOAA WEBShop 200418 Mirroring software  Applications considered Peer software  PeerSync Availl  Availl Replication Falconstor software  Hardware & software solution Repliweb  RDS & R1

19. NOAA WEBShop 200419 Testing  Replication over LAN To familiarize ourselves with software Test software compatibility  Ensure data are encrypted  Time to first complete snapshot  FDMS failover test Serve data from NAS box

20. NOAA WEBShop 200420 Results  Mostly positive  Replication software works well Replicates very large files in reasonable time  2 hours for 12Gb file  Hardware acceptable Some issues, but may be related to the IOMega NAS device.  Very little impact should FDMS change hardware/software architecture

21. NOAA WEBShop 200421 Tradeoffs  Unable to mirror open files Copying backups of the databases Do replication when there are no users online Works with “OpenFile Manager” (third party software)  No immediate system to revert to not really a requirement

22. NOAA WEBShop 200422 Tradeoffs  Mirroring relies completely on network (Internet) No FDMS usage during internet outage – acceptable risk

23. NOAA WEBShop 200423 Conclusion  Viable, cost effective solution as a standby file system to ensure COOP  Will be implemented as a operational component of FDMS

24. NOAA WEBShop 200424 Contact information Eugene F. Burger OAR/PMEL – Seattle eugene.burger@noaa.gov (206) 526-4586