ARS achieves near-zero data loss using Standby in the cloud

Their situation

Based in Fort Collins, Colorado, Air Resource Specialists (ARS) assists clients to monitor and model air quality and compliance with environmental standards. ARS operates systems which continuously capture and record environmental data from across the United States, including air quality measurements and meteorological data.

With customers’ ever increasing reporting and compliance requirements, the availability of ARS’s near real-time data is critical. Furthermore, to maintain business growth, particularly with key government clients, the service required 24x7 operation 365 days a year. ARS had 400GB of data gathered from hundreds of devices across the country, some stretching back to 1980.

In 2017, ARS required a new and modern Disaster Recovery solution for their databases, as their 2013 solution was nearing end-of-life. This DR solution consisted of a physically replicated standby server on the same campus. Key requirements for the new solution were greater resiliency through geographic separation, future expandability, and a low total cost of ownership (TCO).

Overview

Solution:

The on-premise to cloud architecture enabled geographically distant replication and provides ARS with the ability to increase storage at any time
Installation and testing was simple requiring 12 hours of one DBA’s time
ARS calculated that the total cost of ownership of a hybrid solution was similar to that of a replacement server, but with the added benefit of an off-site DR location for their standby database improving resilience.

Results:

The standby has already been utilised in a hardware failure event, which delivered recovery in less than 15 minutes of downtime with near zero data loss
Standby™ was chosen to enable an on-premise to cloud standby architecture. This incorporated Standby™, Oracle Standard Edition, and the Oracle Cloud.

How we helped the client

An on-premises to cloud architecture using Standby™ was chosen as the disaster recovery solution due to low total cost of ownership, future expandability, and geographic separation. By using Standby™’s cloud replication feature, they were able to maintain and exceed the performance of their on-premises primary database, with the added resilience, security, and ease of deployment of a cloud-based server.

ARS calculated that the total cost of ownership of a hybrid solution was similar to that of a replacement server, but with the added benefit of an off-site DR location for their standby database improving resilience. It also gave them the flexibility to easily increase the solution’s capacity if required.

We have found Dbvisit Standby to be particularly easy to implement,
monitor and test, and the Dbvisit support team are always very quick to
respond when we need them. Overall, we’ve found Dbvisit Standby to be an
extremely cost-effective solution, based as it is on Oracle Standard Edition.

Besty Davis-Noland IT Manager Air Resource Specialists, Inc.

The positive outcome

The implementation of the hybrid DR solution incorporating Standby™, Oracle Standard Edition and Oracle Cloud was very quick and economical. The entire project took two weeks from start to finish, with a total of 12 hours effort from one DBA. This included the creation of the target Oracle Cloud environment as well as the testing of the standby database.

Standby™ regularly replicates up to 5.5GB of data daily for the 385GB database, demonstrating the ability for a cloud-based standby database to be deployed at scale.

This hybrid solution has provided extra resilience to ARS. The standby database is in a different geographic location to the primary database, providing added resilience in the event of a local disaster. ARS are content knowing that their DR strategy and tools are adaptable, proven and supported.

Another benefit of the hybrid solution has been the ability to quickly and easily add storage and compute resources to the standby database. This has enabled ARS to rapidly increase the capacity of the standby database without the need to purchase and install additional hardware.

The new DR solution has already been successfully implemented in a recent primary hardware failure. Rather than allow the primary server to continue to run and risk further degradation of the hardware, ARS performed a graceful switchover (planned switchover) to their standby database while they repaired the primary. The result was a downtime of less than 15 minutes and almost zero data loss.

Tags: Case Study, Oracle SE, Oracle Cloud, Disaster resilience, Scientific Services, Easy manageability, Cloud implementation, Data Analytics

RTO of 15 minutes

In summary

ARS’s current standby had reached end-of-life and required replacement that provided greater resilience, future expandability, and a low TCO.
Standby™ was chosen to enable a on-premise to cloud standby architecture. This incorporated Standby™, Oracle Standard Edition, and the Oracle Cloud.
The on-premise to cloud architecture enabled geographically distant replication and provides ARS with the ability to increase storage at any time.
RTO of 15 minutes
Near zero data loss