University of Alabama’s Office of Information Technology Completes Most Ambitious Disaster Recovery Exercise

University of Alabama’s Office of Information Technology Completes Most Ambitious Disaster Recovery Exercise

• May 20th, 2024
• in Uncategorized

In a significant milestone for campus operations, the Office of Information Technology (OIT) at The University of Alabama successfully conducted its most ambitious Disaster Recovery (DR) exercise on May 17. This test, a live DR scenario, was designed to ensure that critical campus operations could continue uninterrupted in the event of a data center failure.

This exercise aimed to perform a physical failover from the primary data center (DC-1) to the secondary data center (DC-2). The team shut down a substantial subset of servers and applications in DC-1, forcing DC-2 to function as the primary data center. The test included crucial services such as networking, campus-wide internet connectivity, VoIP, and the development and testing environments for Banner, the university’s primary administrative system. After running services from DC-2, the team executed a failback to DC-1, ensuring a smooth transition between the two centers.

This 15-month-in-the-making exercise required the involvement of every area within OIT and multiple campus partners, including on-campus resources and virtual participants. Originally planned for the entire weekend to address potential issues, the team completed the exercise in under six hours. All steps of the process were meticulously documented to be used for future DR exercises and cross-training.

This test demonstrates the resilience of the university’s IT infrastructure by simulating the failure of critical systems and validating the university’s ability to recover. This successful exercise strengthens the readiness of campus operations, ensuring that, in the face of unexpected disruptions, the university can continue to provide essential services with minimal downtime.