Enhancing availability, even when high availability is not required
Providing high availability (HA) protection for critical applications is a standard IT best practice. However, broader downtime protection best practices -- and options for delivering this protection -- are not as clearly defined. As a result, applications that are not considered mission critical are often left with minimal protection. Yet downtime for these non-mission critical applications can be more than a nuisance. It can impose a costly and disruptive burden on IT teams that must devote time and resources to bringing those applications back online.
Downtime can also be frustrating to end users whose work may be interrupted and put on hold. It may have downstream consequences for customer satisfaction as well.