Seven Tiers of Disaster Recovery

Photo Source: Topato

Today, to make a long story short, I landed upon the Wikipedia entry for the "Seven Tiers of Disaster Recovery". The original source is over here at Recovery Specialties.

If you're not familiar, it's a very common, if not somewhat dated, breakdown of the various levels of systems and data protection categorized by tier. Starting at 0, the higher the tier, the more protection, right?

[Ignore the fact that tiers 0-7 is actually 8 tiers... but I suppose we don't count "Tier 0: No offsite data".]

At first glance, one might think that "Tier 0: No Offsite Data" is as bad as it could get for a specific system or an organization in terms of preparedness. It's either a DR planner's dream or nightmare, depending on your expectations.

But no. It could be worse. In fact, the spectrum of tiers is to be expanded... and in the negative direction...

As I learned from the Wikipedia entry:

Tier -1: No backup of any sort

Businesses with Tier -1 continuity have absolutely no backups and data recovery is completely impossible.

[So this would exclude backing up to a local VTL providing recovery only in scenarios less than total loss of the data center, which I suppose could be classed a Tier 0 in the original model.]

Tier -2: Intentional deletion of data

Users deliberately delete mission critical data and cripple their organization.

[Perhaps a Mexican drug cartel, or a presidential candidate, earning a lot of money in ways they don't want discovered might consider implementing DR at Tier -2, but more likely at Tier -3.]

Tier -3: Human memory

A human is tasked with memorizing all company data. Transmission occurs by speech from this employee to all other employees. Computers or other technology are not used in any way whatsoever to assist with storage. Even hard copy backups are strictly forbidden. Recovery is not possible if the storage user is lost.

[Johnny Mnemonic was into this kind of thing.]

Tier -4: Data has never existed

Data has never existed possibly because the company does not exist, it retains no employees, or business operations have not yet begun.

[Yes, we even have a DR solution for the company that never makes it past the dream stage, or whose product won't exist for another hundred years, or may never exist in this universe.]

For reading all the way to the end, as an added bonus, you can download a PDF of the Wikipedia entry for posting to your cubicle wall. I saved it just in case someone reverts the article back.