Hybrid Cloud Tips
One of the primary reasons for availing of hybrid technology in database administration is to use it as the recovery target in case of a disaster. It is very common for the organizational structure to have a foolproof Disaster Recovery Plan or DRP in place.
This needs to be ideally addressed before the architectural implementation of the database setup, either on the cloud or on-premise. You may think that everything may fall in place unpredictably and can affect the business drastically if it is not understood and addressed in the right way.
Overcoming such challenges need a very effective DRP in place with your system well configured as per the application, business requirements, and enterprise infrastructure. The key to success here in such situations is how quickly you can act on the issues to recover our data or fix the damages.
When DRP addresses your concerns during disaster circumstances, business continuity is another measure to ensure that the DRP is well-tested and fully operational when it is necessary. The Disaster Recovery options for your enterprise databases should ensure continuous operations and abound to the limits of your expectations.
This has to be well in tune with the desired RPO and RTO of your business. It is also important to make sure that the production databases are always available for the applications during disaster times too. Otherwise, it may prove to be a highly expensive deal.
The data architects and DBAs need to ensure that the database environments can sustain disasters and can be SLA compliant in disaster recovery. The database deployments should ideally be configured to make sure that the disasters will not affect business continuity and database availability.
Options for disaster recovery
For disaster recovery, your PostgreSQL cluster should be configured systematically, which commits to the industry best practices and meets the set minimum industry standards. Along with this systematic approach to disaster recovery, you may also follow the standard mechanisms and processes, which help to ensure that the PostgreSQL you deployed to the Hybrid Cloud has the below:
- Effective failover and switchover.
- An automated backup process.
- High availability.
- Effective load Balancing.
- A highly distributed environment.
To better understand disaster recovery on the cloud, you can approach the consulting experts of RemoteDBA.com. Let us explore these further.
Failover and switchover
Failover has to be automated, and in case the master fails, then either a warm standby or hot standby server is promoted as the master server or primary server. This is an ideal practice that can afford a high availability environment to have a secondary node that will act as the prospective candidate for a failover node. If the primary server fails, then the standby server must automatically begin the failover procedure and then take over the role of the primary.
A standard failover system will utilize a minimum of two servers in general practice, which will serve as both primary and standby. The connectivity check of this system will be assisted by a heartbeat mechanism that will do continuous checks to verify that both are good state and the communication is kept alive. In some specific cases, connectivity may give you a false alarm too, so there should be a presence of a third system, too, as a monitoring node on a separate network. This is a foolproof configuration to prevent any unwanted or inappropriate failover.
Automated backups
As we know, backups are inevitable even when you have the strongest security and failover mechanisms in place. Backups guarantee proper safeguarding against any data loss. The backup will help maximize your RPO as it aids in minimizing data loss while any disaster occurs. You have to consider here and prepare for the automated backup process: the hardware and appliance needed, redundancy of backup data, performance, security, speed, data storage, etc.
Backup appliance
For backup, you may need to have the best choice of appliances. These should possess high storage volume, speed, and high availability. It is also necessary that you have to isolate your backup from the local network to be placed in a remote location. You may also think of engaging third-party providers for backup.
Backup data redundancy
As discussed above, spreading your backup data across various locations is a good solution. This will strengthen the chances of your data recovery in good condition. Some data backup environments like Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage, Azure Blob Storage, etc., offer replication of your file stores. This offers more redundancy which you can set up in highly flexible ways as you prefer.
High availability
High availability in the hybrid cloud PostgreSQL cluster means that your database has maximum uptime. The ideal scenario here in terms of high availability is based on your availability needs. Here, a common setup in the case of PostgreSQL is deployment in a hybrid cloud, which can be your database being hosted in the public cloud to act as the data recovery cluster if the primary cluster fails. In another setup, it is arranged in such a way that the secondary cluster lies in a public cloud, which might not be as sophisticated as the primary.
To ensure a highly available PostgreSQL cluster, you have to set up a failover mechanism too in place. If there is a failure and the primary cluster or the primary server is down, then there should be a secondary server or standby to take over the primary role. The most important thing here is functionality and performance, especially from the client or application standpoint, which are not affected in case of a failover or only minimally affected.
Load balancing
Load balancing can aid the hybrid cloud setup for the PostgreSQL cluster, which is less risky and more manageable. This is ideal when there is a high traffic load. In many ideal situations, sever receives a significantly high load which may cause the server to panic and go into an unusable state as the resources are consumed by many threads in the background. The solution here is to fix the bad queries and design the architecture of the database.
Distributed environment
Deploying a highly distributed cluster on different cloud providers, both on-premises or public or private cloud will offer optimum tolerability and flexibility in a hybrid cloud environment. This is also good for disaster recovery. However, this setup requires advanced knowledge as being more complex. Fine-tuning and optimization are crucial to ensure success as it is very important while serving tightened security for data encapsulation while transferring it over the internet.
So, you must have all the right tools and options to support the disaster recovery planning on disaster recovery of the PostgreSQL database on a hybrid cloud. So, invest in the right tools and skills, which will save your business from any adverse impacts.
Mustafa Al Mahmud is the Founder of Gizmo Concept and also a professional Blogger, SEO Professional as well as Entrepreneur. He loves to travel and enjoy his free moment with family members and friends.