Most seasoned enterprise data center and network managers would agree that no one has ever been fired for having a business continuity/disaster recovery (BC/DR) plan that was too good. However, when well-conceived plans – including off-site locations, storage and other data center assets as well as WAN connectivity – are actually implemented, many businesses quickly sacrifice high-performance WAN infrastructure due to what they perceive to be the comparatively high connectivity and bandwidth costs and instead implement short-term, lower-cost bandwidth optimization solutions.

Using hardware solutions such as data de-duplication and compression, this approach is an attempt to optimize WAN connectivity between the primary and backup sites to obtain a short-term reduction in the bandwidth capacity required to support data backup and disk mirroring recommendations within the BC/DR plan. However, a strategic BC/DR plan needs to look beyond a specific point in time and address the long-term requirements for the business, because bandwidth capacity and storage demands will unquestionably increase over time, and new applications and data protocols must become part of the BC/DR plan.

Rather than attempting to cut initial costs, data center and network managers must plan BC/DR solutions that implement WAN connectivity that is flexible enough to support any protocol mix or data type while accommodating unforeseen spikes in traffic and capacity. For example, applications such as disk mirroring, disk backup and data replication or storage at remote locations require WAN connectivity solutions that can handle huge capacity demands and rapid changes in traffic types. A fiber optic-based WAN solution provides the most capacity and flexibility to deliver low-maintenance, highly resilient BC/DR connectivity without necessitating large hardware investments or creating additional management burdens – all of which should be factored into the total cost of ownership (TCO) analysis.

A flexible, scalable and multiservice WAN solution increases performance and confidence in the BC/DR plan. Additionally, new applications such as mainframe and video traffic can be added to the network easily as network capacity demands grow, without increasing management complexities or hardware costs. In data center-to-data center solutions for BC/DR networks, data center and network managers should carefully scrutinize WAN optimization solutions that promise to deliver cost savings and resiliency without providing the type of connectivity that can scale and react as fast as a BC/DR plan can change or a disaster can occur.

Ray Patalano is a senior manager, field marketing at Ciena Corporation. Please visit www.ciena.com for more information.