Disaster Recovery Virtualization Using Container Workloads
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) solutions often face challenges in meeting recovery time and recovery point objectives, as they rely on traditional virtual machine replication methods that are time-consuming and may not provide immediate failover capabilities, leading to potential disruptions and revenue loss during disasters.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a dual-process approach for disaster recovery, where a foreground process uses lightweight virtualization techniques to operate critical applications immediately, while a background process creates a replica of the IT environment, allowing for seamless migration once the replica is complete, thereby minimizing downtime and ensuring compliance with recovery objectives.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If traditional virtual machine replication methods are used for disaster recovery, then data integrity is ensured, but recovery time is excessive and may not meet recovery time objectives
Solution Approach 1:
The disaster recovery process is divided into two independent parallel processes: a background process that creates a complete replica of the IT environment (ensuring data integrity), and a foreground process that provides immediate temporary support for core applications (reducing recovery time). These processes operate simultaneously and independently, allowing the system to meet recovery time objectives while maintaining data integrity.
Solution Approach 2:
The background process begins creating the replica environment in advance, before the foreground process completes its temporary support function. This preliminary action ensures that when the foreground process finishes, a complete and validated replica is already ready for seamless migration, minimizing overall recovery time while ensuring data integrity is established beforehand.
2Device complexity
If a single process is used for disaster recovery, then process complexity is reduced, but the ability to meet both recovery time and recovery point objectives deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The recovery system is segmented into two distinct processes with different functions: the background process handles complete environment replication for compliance with recovery point objectives, while the foreground process handles immediate temporary support for recovery time objectives. This segmentation allows each process to be optimized for its specific function while working together to meet both objectives.
Solution Approach 2:
The foreground process acts as an intermediary between the disaster event and the final replica environment. It provides temporary support services that bridge the gap between system failure and complete recovery, allowing the system to meet recovery time objectives while the background process simultaneously establishes the compliant replica environment.
3Loss of time
If immediate failover is implemented for core applications, then recovery time is reduced, but system complexity increases due to multiple parallel processes
Solution Approach 1:
The system is segmented into foreground and background processes with clearly defined responsibilities. The foreground process handles immediate temporary support for core applications, providing fast recovery without requiring complex coordination. The background process independently creates the complete replica, simplifying the overall system architecture by separating immediate response functions from comprehensive replication functions.
4Reliability
If traditional replication methods are used, then complete environment replication is achieved, but recovery speed is insufficient for critical applications
Solution Approach 1:
The replication process is segmented into two parallel tracks: the background process performs complete environment replication at full fidelity to ensure reliability, while the foreground process provides immediate temporary support with simplified replication to achieve high speed. This segmentation allows the system to deliver both complete replication and fast recovery for critical applications simultaneously.
Solution Approach 2:
The foreground process performs partial replication focused only on core applications and temporary support functions, rather than complete environment replication. This partial action is sufficient to meet recovery time objectives for critical applications, while the background process simultaneously performs the complete replication needed for full environment recovery.
Data Source
AI summary
Embodiments of the invention relate to recovering from a disaster associated with an information technology environment. An information technology environment is replicated to a service provider. A recovery plan is generated for the environment. The recovery plan includes two processes. In response to the service provider receiving a disaster recovery request associated with the environment, the service provider executes a disaster recovery protocol. The protocol includes simultaneously executes the first and second processes. The first process operates a workload in the form of one or more containers, and the second process is a background process that creates a replica of the environment. After completion of the replica creation, the workload is migrated to the replica.