EZswitch^®

Disaster Recovery and Backup

Overview

EZswitch® is normally packaged with a single production server to reduce total implementation costs. Additional servers for backup, disaster recovery and testing are offered as optional components at time of purchase. A backup system (preferably deployed at an off-site location) is strongly recommended.

If there is a problem with your production server, your Network can stand-in and authorize transactions using predetermined limits established by your financial institution. In some cases, a positive balance file (PBF) may be used if your Network is willing to accept a periodic PBF file from your financial institution. In either case, your Network can provide stand-in authorization services until your production server is repaired and brought back online (please be aware that stand-in processing is normally a chargeable service).

In a typical EZswitch® 2010 environment, data is backed up from the production server to the SwitchView workstation located on the same network. If the production server suffers a failure, the data previously transferred to the SwitchView workstation can be used to restore the production system after repair. If the systems are located in the same physical location and a flood, fire or other event renders them inoperable, all critical data would be lost.

Available Solutions

There are several ways to accomplish backup and disaster recovery with varying levels of complexity and cost. Here are a few examples of CSFi-supported solutions:

• Cold Standby. Obtain a desktop or enteprise level rack mount backup/DR server that matches the capacity of your production server. The EZswitch® application software is installed on the backup/DR server and receives periodic batch data transmittals from the production server. If the production system fails, the backup/DR system can be used with some manual intervention until the production system is repaired.

• Hot Standby. Obtain a desktop or enteprise level rack mount backup/DR server that matches the capacity of your production server. The EZswitch® 2010 application software is installed on the backup/DR server. Obtain an enhanced Informix database license that supports data replication functions and transmits the production server data (as it occurs) to the backup/DR server (normally in a remote location). Based on the logisitcs of the backup/DR server location to that of the production server, communication line and bandwidth requirements must be sufficient to handle the transmittal of data to the backup/DR server and the return acknowledgment to the production server within the required response time.

• Hot Standby with RSS. Setup a desktop or enteprise level rack mount backup/DR server that matches the production server but uses IBM Informix Remote Standalone Secondary(RSS) for replication. RSS provides full real-time database replication on the backup server, similar to High-Availability Data Replication (HDR). In contrast to HDR (hot-standby), RSS can support fully duplexed communications flow to reduce bottlenecking of data over slower bandwidths, and it has the ability to provide data replication without the synchronous mode.
  

• Remote Server Exchange. This program ensures that a new server (located at CSFi's headquarters) will be staged with your EZswitch® software and delivered to your financial institution within the following business day (note: next day delivery services must be supported in your geographic area).

Note: EZswitch® enterprise level rack mount servers include mirrored disks to help protect your data in the event of a disk failure and can be optionally configured with a redundant power supply. To obtain a backup, disaster recovery or test server or to learn more about hot standby processing or the remote server exchange program, please contact sales@csfi.com.


Reference Documentation

Click here to obtain Informix backup and recovery procedures including information describing High Availbility Data Replication (HDR) and the inf-backup-ftp.sh script that is already installed on your EZswitch® system. The inf-backup-ftp.sh script runs on the system via a cron job and will perform a backup of the database and then FTP it to a desired location. The default setup is to send the backup data file to the SwitchView. If a backup/DR server is deployed, the file could be sent to the backup/DR server instead. The database can either be manually restored on the backup/DR server or a script called inf-restore.sh can be used.