What parts are missing from your DR plan? Part 2.
What parts are missing from your DR plan? Part 2. Cristie Data helps you manage complex physical server restores – even on a large scale. Our recovery software integrates seamlessly with leading backup solutions from Rubrik, Cohesity, Dell Technologies and IBM, enabling automated, complete system recovery. Do you have a comprehensive disaster recovery plan for failed physical systems? Virtual machines and cloud computing shape the modern IT landscape. Nevertheless, physical systems are essential – both as the basis for virtualization and for compute-intensive or legacy applications. However, many current backup solutions neglect the protection of physical machines. This creates a blind spot in disaster recovery. In the event of a cyberattack or disaster, restoring physical systems becomes particularly time-consuming and can result in long downtimes of critical services. Cristie Software drastically reduces downtime by eliminating manual intervention in restoring physical systems. Manual processes and a lack of automation make it difficult to recover physical machines, especially in large server environments. Cristie solves this problem with advanced automation – similar to virtual machines. Our solution also offers flexible recovery to different target environments (virtual, cloud, dissimilar hardware) – without any manual intervention. Recovering physical servers after a failure is more complex than recovering virtual machines due to several fundamental factors: 1. Hardware Dependency Physical Components: Physical servers depend on specific hardware (motherboard, CPU, RAM, hard drives, network cards, etc.). A failure of individual components can affect the entire server. Restoration requires spare parts and repairs, resulting in extended downtime. Outdated hardware: Older hardware may be difficult or impossible to replace, forcing a lengthy upgrade process. Vendor lock-in: You may be tied to specific hardware vendors. This limits flexibility and can lead to delays in procurement. 2. Lack of abstraction Tight binding to the operating system (OS): Physical servers are strongly linked to the operating system and the underlying hardware. Recovery requires reinstalling and configuring the operating system, drivers, and all applications—a complex and time-consuming process. Lack of portability: Physical servers cannot be easily migrated between hardware platforms. A full recovery often requires the exact replication of the original hardware components and configuration. 3. Manual Processes Physical access required: Recovery often requires manual intervention. Someone must be on-site to troubleshoot hardware issues, install components, or boot from recovery media. This leads to delays, especially in remote data centers or where staffing is limited. Slow recovery: Manually reinstalling the operating system, configuring settings, recovering data, and testing applications on a physical server are time-consuming and error-prone. In summary, due to their dependence on specific hardware, their tight coupling with the operating system, and the need for manual processes, physical servers are more difficult to recover after a failure. Physical machines lack the abstraction, portability, and automation potential of virtual machines, which fundamentally makes their rapid recovery in a disaster recovery scenario difficult. Cristie offers bare machine recovery (BMR) solutions that integrate seamlessly with Rubrik, Cohesity, Dell Technologies, and IBM backup environments without significant additional management overhead. If necessary, the Cristie CBMR software can also be used as a standalone recovery solution. Learn more: Are you facing the challenge of recovering physical systems after a cyberattack or other large-scale DR scenario? Then contact the Cristie Data team to learn how we help other companies with this task. If you already use a backup solution from Rubrik, Cohesity, Dell Technologies or IBM, our recovery software is an essential extension of your backup environment. In the event of a disaster, it can save you many hours, if not days, of downtime.