WebSphere Application Server V7.0: Concepts ... - IBM Redbooks

4.6.4 Testing
Alerting is just a first part of your incident and problem management. For further
information and more details about incident and problem management refer to
the ITIL® pages at the following Web page:
http://www.itlibrary.org/index.php?page=ITIL
As with each component in your environment, do not forget to test your
monitoring infrastructure regularly. Especially if the implementation is new, test
every single monitoring alert and make sure that your monitoring detects each
condition of your system properly.
Do not stop your testing when you see a monitoring situation raised. Test the
whole process, including alerting and incident management and ensure that
conditions are reset automatically as soon as the situation is back to normal.
4.7 Planning for backup and recovery
4.7.1 Risk analysis
In general, computer hardware and software is reliable, but sometimes failures
can occur and damage a machine, network device, software product,
configuration, or more importantly, business data. Do not underestimate the risk
of a human error that might lead to damage. It is important to plan for such
occurrences. There are a number of stages to creating a backup and recovery
plan, which is discussed in the following sections.
The first step to creating a backup and recovery plan is to complete a
comprehensive risk analysis. The goal is to discover which areas are the most
critical and which hold the greatest risk. It is important to identify which business
processes are the most important and are prioritized accordingly.
4.7.2 Recovery strategy
When critical areas have been identified, develop a strategy for recovering those
areas. There are numerous backup and recovery strategies available that vary in
recovery time and cost. In most cases, the cost increases as the recovery time
decreases. The key to the proper strategy is to find the proper balance between
recovery time and cost. The business impact is the determining factor in finding
the proper balance. Business-critical processes need quick recovery time to
minimize business losses. Therefore, the recovery costs are greater.
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