Will Your SAP HANA Backup Actually Protect You in a Disaster?

Your SAP HANA system just went down. What’s your first thought?

If you’re like many system administrators, you’re thinking, “It’s no big deal. We have a great SAP HANA backup solution in place. It will take some work, but we should have all our data restored in minutes.”

Yes, your backup software probably makes it easy to bring all your data back, exactly the way it was just minutes before the crash. But as important as data is to your business, it may be the least important consideration in the disaster recovery picture.

Most SAP HANA backup software can’t and won’t enable your business users to get fully back up and running within a timeframe that’s acceptable to your business. Here’s why.

What it Really Takes to Restore SAP HANA

Restoring your data is easy enough, whether you install a new box or simply swap out the hard drive on the down box. It’s what comes next that exposes the shortcomings of the typical SAP HANA backup solution.

We’ve all seen that dreaded error message at some point:

“No Operating System Installed.”

 

You can’t restore your data until you reinstall SUSE Linux. And you can’t do that without reinstalling not just the original OS from DVDs, but also the litany of security patches and updates you’ve installed over the past couple of years.

This isn’t challenging work for you, of course. But it’s time consuming. And every minute your business stays down will cost you money. How much money? That depends on your line of business—but most estimates start at several thousand dollars per minute.

The main problem in this scenario is that your SAP HANA backup software didn’t back up your OS—it only backed up your data.

This, of course, is why many sysadmins run high-availability (HA) systems that automatically fail over to a mirrored SAP HANA server in another location. HA systems do have a lot of advantages. But they also have a critical shortcoming—and we’re not just talking about the high cost.

Why High-Availability Isn’t a Foolproof Solution

The advantage of HA systems is that they’ll replicate everything on your IBM Power System server. It’s like SAP HANA backup on steroids.

That advantage is also a disadvantage. HA systems will replicate everything on your IBM Power System server. Even malware.

Cyber crime is on the rise. Criminals want your business data—even if your organization isn’t Fortune 500. They have an increasingly sophisticated array of techniques for attacking your network and evading detection. If their malicious code gets onto your main SAP HANA server, and that server is automatically replicated onto other servers….well, we don’t need to tell you the rest.

One cyber attack can easily knock out your entire HA system. But fortunately, there’s a practical, cost-effective solution for SAP HANA disaster recovery.

How to Get True SAP HANA Disaster Recovery

As you seek to protect your business from extended downtime, you’re thinking hard about balancing your recovery time objective (RTO) against your budget. Sure, every sysadmin would love to have a solution that ensures everything will be back up and running within seconds—but not every sys admin has the budget of a high-profile stock trading website. A more sensible solution is to pursue a bare-metal recovery solution.

With a bare-metal solution that backs up your entire system, you can get more than just SAP HANA backup—you’ll get true SAP HANA disaster recovery. And you’ll probably be surprised at how much bang it delivers for your buck.

Get the full story by downloading our free white paper, Why Your SAP HANA Backup System Isn’t a Disaster Recovery Solution—and What to Do About It.