disaster recovery plan for data center in saudi arabia 7 (3).docx

Running head: DISASTER RECOVERY PLAN

Disaster Recovery Plan for Data Center in Saudi Arabia

Name

Institution

2DISASTER RECOVERY PLAN

Executive Summary

Flooding has been a major disaster in Saudi Arabia for several decades. They occur

almost annually and affect most parts of the country. The floods have devastating effect on the

country: it manages building, wash away infrastructure use of the some infrastructure and kills a

significant number of people. This paper will investigate disaster recovery plan for data center

that is used in Saudi Arabia. The country has eighteen data centers that are located in different

parts of the country. The centers house data for various organizations such as business

organizations, government departments and agencies among other organizations in the country.

Data centers in the flood prone areas are destroyed and it takes time before they can recovery all

the data. All the data centers have come with a recovery plan to mitigate the damage that is

associated with the flood. It will review these plans, identify various aspects of the flood and

provide problem solution to the flooding problems.


1.0 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………3

Research Question…………………………………………………………………….4

Problem Statement………………………………………………………………………..4

Objective ………………………………………………………………………………5

Scope…………………………………………………………………………………….5

Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………..6

2.0 Literature Review …………………………………………………………………………..11

3.0 Methodology ………………………………………………………………………...………16

Research Methodology...………………………………………………………….…….16

Research Design………………………………………………………………………....17

Research approach………………………………………………………………………17

Sampling………………………………………………………………………………..18

Data collection………………………………………………………………………….18

Limitations……………………………………………………………………………..18

Solutions………………………………………………………………………………19

4.0 Findings ……………………………………………………………………………….……20

5.0 Discussion……………………………………………………………………………………27

5.1Recommendation………………………………………………………………………….…29

5.2 Conclusion ……………………………….……………………………………………….…30

References ……………………………………………………………………………………….32


1.0 Introduction

Today, almost all business organizations, banks, hospitals, government departments and

agencies, learning institutions and military institutions rely on information technology for their

day to day operations. Some of these institutions operate on a tight schedule and continuity of

services is a critical consideration. A reliable information system is, therefore, an indispensable

requirement for their success. However, the systems are interrupted by either human interference

or natural disaster. Some of the human interferences include hackers and terrorism among others

while natural disasters include fire, flooding, earthquakes and volcano among other natural

occurring phenomena. This paper will focus on disaster recovery plan for data centers in Saudi

Arabia a natural disaster such as a flood.

All parts of the world experience unique but inevitable natural disasters from time to

time. However, some parts are more prone to disasters which negatively impact on the region.

Example of such areas include Saudi Arabia, which has experienced several kinds of natural

disasters such as; earthquakes, fires, epidemics and floods. However, flood has had a far reaching

affects than any other natural disasters in the region. This is because they occur annually and

highly influence various aspects of life in the region. They kill thousands of people and damages

properties worth millions of money every year (Subyani, 2011). In addition, it affects data center

system and it entities which delay or shut down operations of various organizations in the

country. This calls for a well-established data center disaster recovery plan to minimize the

effects of the floods in the region.

Natural disasters are not only unpredictable but also inevitable. They vary in type and

magnitude and their effects are proportional to their magnitude. It results to stoppage of


operations in various organizations that relies on information technology for their day to day

operation. This causes business organizations losses revenues, stops service delivery in banks

and government departments and agencies and jeopardize the security of a country when it

interrupt the military and other security agencies. The best measure to address the problem and

reduce the negative impacts established a disaster recovery plan for the data center, which will be

used to return the data center in normal operation without delay. According to Philander, Data

Center Recovery Plan is an organizational planning to resume operations following unexpected

event which damage data software and hardware systems (2008). It addresses the information

resources so that the negative impact of the disaster is minimized and the affected organizations

are able to resume normal operation.

Problem Statement

Saudi Arabia has and continues to experience floods every year. The floods impact

natively on organizations operations. In particular, various organizations stop operating due to

the damages cause by the floods. It takes sometime before the organizations can recover and start

to operate normally. This is a major challenge affect various organizations in the region. This

paper will dive into the problem and explore various aspects of the flooding disaster recovery

plan for data center in Saudi Arabia.

Objective

This research aims at exploring various aspect of data center disaster recovery plan so

that it can recommend on how to minimize the problem associated with the floods. Floods have

always impacted negatively on the various organizations in Saudi Arabia. A recovery plan is

therefore essential in order to minimize the impact and attain the normal working rate without


much delay. The present research recommend on various measures that can be used to address

the problem.

Scope

This research study will analyze various aspects of the disaster recovery plan for the data

center in Saudi Arabia. The country has eighteen data centers which stores information for

various organizations in the country. This research will study disaster plan in six data centers

which will reflect the case in the rest of the data centers. In regard to the plan, it will identify the

affected systems and how the plans address them. In addition it will examine various data backup

systems used in these data centers.

Bibliography

The main idea of the paper is the disaster recovery plan. The paper discussed how the

disaster recovery plans are used to recovery data after flooding disaster. It has also examined

various back-up systems that can be used to protect and recovery data. Apparently all materials

dealing with the disaster recovery plan for data center in Saudi Arabia is useful in one way or

other. In addition all materials discussing the effects of flood in various parts of Saudi Arabia

were also useful. Lastly, materials that deals with the data centers especially in Saudi Arabia

were also relevant to the research paper. The bibliographies used in the paper include:

Arnold, R. (2011). Disaster recovery plan. Wellesley, Mass: QED Information Sciences.

Arnold (2011) gives information about the effect of the flood on data centers. It also gives

information on how various data centers deal with the disaster

Al-Doaan, M. I. (2009). Impact of floods on Wadi occupants: An exploratory study of

Wadi Khulays-Marrwani in Saudi Arabia. This reference provides information on the effect of


the floods on various infrastructure and facilities. According to the reference, floods damage and

sweep away building, infrastructure and power station.

American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers. (2011).

Green tips for data centers. Atlanta, GA: American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-

Conditioning Engineers Inc. The reference provides the setting of a typical data centers. It

provide more information various components that are affected by floods in a data centers.

Almalik, M. & Jang, L. K. (2009). Effects of alkaline flooding on the recovery of

Safaniya crude oil of Saudi Arabia. Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering, 8(7) 47-98.

This reference contribute on the impacts of flood on various information. In particular it discuss

the information concerning information technology systems.

Al-Harthi, A. A., & Bankher, K. A. (2009). Collapsing loess-like soil in western Saudi

Arabia. Journal of Arid Environments, 10 (4) 48-53.This reference provides information on the

flooding in Saudi Arabia. It contribute in giving more information on the effects of floods on

various facilities.

Bullock, J., Haddow, G., & Coppola, D. P. (2012). Introduction to Homeland Security:

Principles of All-Hazards Risk Management. Burlington: Elsevier Science. This reference

describes the risk management of data centers. It provides information on the alternative data

storage system.

Bowman, R. H. (2008). Business continuity planning for data centers and systems: A

strategic implementation guide. Hoboken, N.J: John Wiley & Sons.

This provide alternative data recovery plan that are used by other business organization to ensure

continuity after disaster. It gives more information on the disaster recovery plan.


CTC & Associates., & California. (2009). Disaster recovery plan. Sacramento, Calif.:

California Department of Transportation. This is one of the main references in the paper. It

provides a range of data system to the method of mitigating the threats.

Gomaa et al (2011). GIS-Based Spatial Mapping of Flash Flood Hazard in Makkah City,

Saudi Arabia. Scientific Research Publishing. Revised selected papers. Berlin: Springer. This

reference provides information about the effects of the floods in the country. It deals with the

disaster in Makkah city which host some of main data centers in Saudi Arabia .

Fong, A., & Xianggang jin hui xue yuan. (2010). The disaster recovery plan. Hong Kong:

Business Research Centre, Hong Kong Baptist College. This gives more information about the

disaster recovery plan. In the research, it provides more about the back-up system that are used

to store data in case of disaster.

Fernandes, A. P., & Holmgren, A. (2004). Glutaredoxins: Glutathione-Dependent Redox

Enzymes with Functions Far Beyond a Simple Thioredoxin Backup System. Antioxidants &

Redox Signaling, 6(4) 37-58. This gives various types of back-up system commonly used in data

storage. It gives an in depth information about the back-up systems used in various data centers.

Frølund, S., & Pedone, F. (2003). Dealing efficiently with data-center disasters. Journal

of Parallel and Distributed Computing, 10 (3) 2-5. The articles gives the procedural steeps used

by various data center to recovery their lost data. It is one of the main references in the data as it

deals with how data are recovered.

Herminghaus, V., & Scriba, A. (2009). Storage management in data centers:

Understanding, exploiting, tuning, and troubleshooting veritas storage foundation. Berlin:

Springer. This deals with various data center storage equipment. In the paper, it is relevant in

providing formation about back up system.


Joshi, Y., & Kumar, P. (2012). Energy efficient thermal management of data centers.

New York: Springer. This deals with the management of the energy in the data centers. It

provides information such as the facilities that are affected by the floods and water.

Memish, Z. A., Almuneef, M., & Dillon, J. (2002). Epidemiology of needlestick and

sharps injuries in a tertiary care center in Saudi Arabia. American Journal of Infection Control 12

(16) 139-168.

This provide more information on the damage that is caused by data centers in Saudi Arabia. It

gives more information components of data centers affected by the floods. National

Research Council (U.S.)., & National Research Council (U.S.). (2003). Government data

centers: Meeting increasing demands. Washington, D.C: National Academies Press. The

reference deals with the floods USA. However, it provides information how to best recovery data

after flooding.

International Workshop on Energy-Efficient Data Centers, & Huusko, J. (2012). Energy

efficient data centers: First International Workshop, E²DC 2012, Madrid, Spain, Mai 8, 2012.

This is a research paper that had been done investigating the impact of flood on data centers. It

provides more information on a wide range of information ranging from the recovery plant to

data centers.

Oklahoma Educational Television Authority. (2009). Disaster recovery plan. Oklahoma

City, Okla.: The Authority This gives more information on the disaster recovery plan. It gives

the procedure that should be used to recover data after flooding disaster.

Philander, S. G. (2008). Encyclopedia of global warming and climate change. Los

Angeles: SAGE. This reference provides general information about the cause and the effects of

the disaster of floods. It also state how the impact of the flood can be mitigated


Robbins, P., & Sage Publications. (2007). Encyclopedia of environment and society.

Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications. This provide abroad overview of the flooding. Through it is

not specific, it relevant in forming the research recommendation.

Ramakrishnan, K. & Merwe, J. (2007). Live data center migration across WANs. a

robust cooperative context aware approach. 2 (1) 2-4.This gives alternative data storage. It

discusses various back-up system used in the information technology.

Subyani, A. M. (2011). Hydrologic behavior and flood probability for selected arid basins

in Makkah area, western Saudi Arabia. Arabian Journal of Geosciences, 4 (5) 31-48.

Subyani (2011) discuss the flooding disaster in Saudi Arabia. It focus on the impact of the

floods on the western side of the country.

Wetlands Engineering & River Restoration Conference, & Hayes, D. F. (2004). Wetlands

2001: Wetlands engineering and river restoration. Reston, Va: American Society of Civil

Engineers. This reference gives an in-depths information about the effects of the floods. It is

relevant in the research as it provide the information about the threats those results flooding in

regard to the data resources.

Wallace, M., & Webber, L. (2004). The disaster recovery handbook: A step-by-step plan

to ensure business continuity and protect vital operations, facilities, and assets. New York:

American Management Association. Wallace & Webber discuss the steps that are used to

recovery data centers in Saudi Arabia after flooding. They describe procedural steps included in

the recovery of the data in various data centers.

2.0 Literature Review

A study conducted in 2011 indicated that, Saudi Arabia had eighteen data centers locate

in different parts of the country (Arnold, 2011). These data center supports various business and


non-business organizations that rely on the information technology for their day to day

operations. The data centers, however, are greatly affected by the floods that occur almost every

year. Despite the long history of flood in in Saudi Arabia, disaster recovery plan for data center

in the Saudi Arabia has attracted very few analysts. The topic has limited literature coverage and

the available resources deals with the general disaster recovery plan after flooding disaster.

However, some of them features recovery plan that should be applied in recovery of the data

centers. Bowman, (2008) defined disaster recovery plan as a systematic process of developing,

evaluating and maintaining practices, procedures and policies of an organization which it would

follow should a disaster occurs. It is a contingency plan dealing with the large disasters such as

floods among other disasters. He continued to argue that the aim of having a disaster plan is to

bring up the services back to the operation as quickly as possible after the flooding disaster.

Unlike a failsafe plan which prevents an interruption of a system, disaster plan involve

recovering and reconstruction of an entire system (Al-Doaan, 2009).

In the past, people thought of a disaster in terms of properties destruction and damage of

buildings and infrastructure. However, they failed to recognize the damage such as data center

that has a great impact in the business and other organizations. The reliance on the information

technology by almost all organizations in their day to day operations has created a need to have a

recovery plan after a disaster in a country. According to a research done in the 2012, most

organizations in Saudi Arabia have realize the importance of the data center disaster recovery

plan (Joshi & Kumar, 2012). Most of the organizations are in the process of implementing

measure that can be used to recovery data in case the organizations experience a disaster.

In the Saudi Arabia, various data center have developed a disaster recovery plan to

recovery their data after disasters. Flooding is common phenomena in the country and which


affects most of organization information technology systems. A study conducted in 2012

indicated that, most organizations loss most of their data during flooding every year. The study

reported that most of the data system and entities such as buildings are destroyed and carried by

the water. Some of the organizations in the country do not have online storage such clouding and

instead store their data in the data center in the form of disks among others. The organizations

loss a lot of information which increase the recovery time when flooding occurs. Some of the

organizations have a backup system for storing data. However, due to lack of proper recovery

plan, they take time to recovery and start operating again. This waste time and is transformed to

financial losses (Herminghaus & Scriba, 2009).

Joshi and Kumar conducted a survey on various flood disaster recovery plan for data

center in Saudi Arabia. They found that most of the data centers contain ten entities. The first

entity is definition of the key data center assets, threats and scenarios. According to the study,

disaster recovery plan for data center in Saudi Arabia start by identifying various assets, threats

and scenarios associated with the flood. Some of the assets include buildings that house the data

systems, equipment that support the data systems and data center system such as computer sets

among others. People working in the areas are also an asset that is prone to risks in case of the

flooding. The plans identify flooding as the disaster that affects the data center systems.

According to them defining of the disaster enables the people in the country identify areas and

the equipment that requires protections. Defining of the threats enables them to know nature of

the treats that can affect the data center systems. Other assets include files and documents on the

local Network systems, email systems, accounting systems among other useful software that can

be permanently being damaged.


Definition of the scenarios refers to the location and situation that are more prone to risk

relative to another. Low and region such as coastal regions in the Saudi Arabia are affected by

the floods more than the sloppy and hilly areas. Situations detect when some measure should be

taken and when they should not be taken. For example, the detect disaster recovery should be

activated and the measures that should be taken in particular situations Joshi and Kumar.

The second step includes determining the recovery window. This refers to the time in

which an organization can do without access to the data center. This time is referred to as the

recovery window for the data center. The high relies on the information technology by the

business organizations and government agencies have made the recovery window very short.

The organizations in the country want to return to the normal operation immediately affect the

flood disaster. Therefore, they recovery plans are formulated in a way that most of the data

center equipment is not affected. This affects makes the organizations be able to recovery faster

and start to operate normally. In addition, the plans focus on the most essential equipment that

the organizations cannot do without (Joshi & Kumar, 2012).

The third step in the flood recovery plans in identifying the alternative system sources.

The alternative sources involve tape and disk backup or data replication to remote location with a

hot failover. The choice of the alternative sources depends mostly on the recovery window and

the assets that are prone to threats. Organizations that have less recovery window have more

alternative system sources than organizations that has extended recovery window.

The fourth stage refers to the actual recovery plan policies and practices. They are based

on the definition of the scenarios, threats and assets. Other considerations that are made it during

the formulation of the policies includes the mitigating the damage among others. Some of the in-

depth considerations include the employees how employees will get to the disaster recovery site


among others (Joshi & Kumar, 2012). Sometime the employees are not able to access the site

due to the threat that the place exposes them to. An emergency plan to cater for this is included

in the plan. All the measures to be taken are included in the sections.

Formulation of the policies is followed by the communication of the policies and the

practices to employees. Disaster plans involves a lot of activities that requires to be assigned to

other employees in the organization. Communication is therefore very essential in assign various

responsibilities to the employees. Some of the responsibilities include who is responsible for

declaring flooding disaster, activating the disaster recovery system among and the team

responsible for the management of the disaster recovery systems. Communication also involves

conveying of messages to the public who may be involved affected by the disaster directly or

indirectly. The disaster plans in the country has a well-organized communication channels

through which communication is conveyed from a standpoint (CTC & Associates & California,

2009).

The sixth system involves the defining the disaster recovery site planning in order to deal

with situations where the data center or main facilities are unavailable. There are three main

types of the sites; a cold, warm and hot site (Joshi & Kumar, 2012). A hot site is a site that has

live communication links working systems and reals data, ready for an immediate or near-

immediate failover of operations. Warm site typically has live communication links and some

amount of hardware, but typically requires installation of software and/or restoration of data

from tape or media. Lastly, a cold site refers to the site where a disaster has decline and the

employees can access.


The seventh step is defining the mechanism for access the data and applications. Initially,

organizations used rows of PCs and phones at work tables and desks for staff to work from the

disaster recovery site.

The eighth step is documenting the disaster recovery plan details. This step is very

critical as it involve the exact measures to be taken at specific time situation of the floods. This is

normally subset component of a disaster recovery plan. It must be very specific and detailed to

capture a wide range of activities as possible. The documentation also includes messy tasks such

as data synchronization and re-load of servers at the main facilities. The complexities of the

information make it complex activities (Joshi & Kumar, 2012).

The ninth step include test the disaster recovery plan. Testing is done to make the

employee familiar with the disaster plan. In addition, it makes the teams involved identify gaps,

inconsistencies and errors in the plan. The right measures made to achieve the required

standards. It presents an opportunity to further refine the plan, identifying missing steps and

weaknesses. The first system is critical ad should be performed with a complete failover and

failback of the system. Refine and re-test the disaster recovery plan (Joshi & Kumar, 2012).

The final step is refining the plan and its documentation and conducts a re-test based on

this revised and refined version. The second should be much smoother than first and positioned

where one can ready to execute against the plan a real disaster recovery situation. The plan

should be keen at the emergency operations center along with copies of a software media and

license keys, copies of system documentation and other useful documents.

3.0Research Design and Methodology


Saudi Arabia has been experiencing natural disaster every year for many decades. Some

of the disasters include fire, floods and earthquakes among others. However, the main disaster

that affects major parts of the country and occurs almost every year is floods. Since 1908 to date,

flooding is an annual thing in the country (Wallace & Webber, 2004). It has negatively impacted

on the development of the country as it destroys infrastructure and various facilities. Business

organizations, government agencies and department among other activities are forced to stop

operating for a period during the flooding. This interpretivism research used various research

methodologies to investigate disaster recovery plan for disaster in the Saudi Arabia (Subyani,

2011).

4.0 Findings

It is apparent that flood is one of the major threats to the facilities and infrastructures

established to perform business operations. Just like other form of the disasters, flooding cannot

be prevented or stopped. The only is to accept it and mitigate its effects to ensure it does not

affect the normal operation of various activities by a large magnitude.

Flooding affect data centers facilities, system and its entities: building, people and power

and communication facilities. These entities together with the data system are the main focus of

disaster recovery plan for data center in Saudi Arabia (Fernandes & Holmgren, 2004)..

Buildings

Flooding affects buildings that house the data center systems and equipment. Flooding

damage and destroys these buildings especially the building s that that do not have strong

construction parameters. In addition, flooding water sweeps sewer which are deposited in the

building. These flooding effects impacts on the data centers in Saudi Arabia. Flooding also


affects the accessibility of the building and it facilities. When the flood occurs, the buildings

become inaccessible and this prohibits employee from entering the building. They have to wait

for many days before the flood reduces and the place become accessible.

According to the disaster recovery plan, destroyed buildings can be recovered into

different ways. First, a secondary location can be selected where key employees can resume

critical activities. The place is referred as work area recovery and is located away from the

flooding areas of the affected data centers bur near. Second, is to ensure that other employees

have resumed to work as soon as possible. This involves identifying unaffected area where these

employees can work and perform the less critical activities before the flooded become safe or

accessible (Fernandes & Holmgren, 2004).

Communication line

Floods affected the communication cause lines and disruption in voice and data which are

nay data center depends on it in their daily operation. Widespread outrage in communication as

evident during flooding interrupts the data systems and could affect the data stored in the data

centers.

Threats in the data centers

Some of the data center system equipment affected includes

Hardware- it makes the bulks of the data centers. It involves computer sets and other data

storage components like hand disk and flask disks.

Software- this is the most essential system that need protection. It contains the data from

various organizations and from various activities. They can only be accessed through hardware

Data- this is the actual information that requires protection. It is stored in software

programs which are accessed through hardware.


Disaster recovery plan for data center in Saudi Arabia after flooding is executed by a

number of teams which include damage assessment team, operation team, communication team,

data entry and control team, off-site storage team, administrative management teams,

procurement team, configuration team, facilities team and users’ assistance team. All these

teams are comprised of various experts in the information technology and management. These

teams have unique roles in the recovery plan and these activities should relate to each other.

Damage assessment team is involved in the assessment of the damage on data center

system and its components after flood has occurred. The team comprises of technical personals

with a thorough understanding of the hardware and equipment and the authority to decide on

what to procure and dispose in respect to hardware and other assets. Their tasks include assessing

the damage caused by the floods and accounting for the damage assessment and loss

minimizations. The team enters the data centers structures immediately after the flood but they

must seek permission from the emergency services agencies in order to ensure they don’t risk

their life in the flooded areas. They assess the damage in the buildings housing the data systems,

the damage on the systems and other equipment. They then write a detailed account of their

assessment. This writing becomes a point of reference in making of decision regarding the

recovery of the data center (International Workshop on Energy-Efficient Data Centers &

Huusko, 2012).

Communication team composes of information technology experts that have majored in

the communication systems. They restore voice, data and video communications links between

the users and the computers after flooding. Some of the factors that are consider when

developing communication team recovery plan include budget, percentage of the data and

network to be covered and the time requirement for restoration.


Another team in the recovery plan is data entry and control team. This team is very

critical in the data center disaster recovery plan in Saudi Arabia after flooding. The essence of

the disaster recovery plan is to recovery the data that are lost during the flooding and be able to

restore them safely. Data entry and control team deals with restoration of the data after they have

been recovered. They enter data and ensure that backup systems are available.

Off-site storage is a very important team in the recovery plan. It comprises of individuals

who are specialized in vital records archival and retrieval. Their tasks in the disaster recovery

team are to retrieve backup copies of data, operating and application systems. They also ensure

that security of the retrieved data and backup systems (International Workshop on Energy-

Efficient Data Centers & Huusko, 2012).

Administrative management team is responsible of the coordinating the primary and

alternative site. It coordinates the all the activities including recovery plans that indirectly

contribute to the data recovery plans. It is also responsible for reassembling all documentation

for the standards, procedure applications, programs, systems and forms as required in the data

center. Additionally, the team deals the transportation of the employees and other equipment to

the require sites.

Users’ assistance team is another very crucial team in the disaster recovery plan for data

center in the Saudi Arabia. The team is composed of individuals with application use-knowledge

and the team is made up of users’ areas managers, production control and analysts. It coordinates

with the information department in order to recovery and restore of data files and databases.

They also coordinate the technical application specialists and database teams in recovery and

restoration of the data information systems (Fernandes & Holmgren, 2004)..


Procurement team consists of individuals who have knowledge and experience in

budgetary funding and supplies inventory. It deals with the acquisition of the necessary resources

and equipment. It is involved in procurement of the assets that have been damaged and washed

away by the floods (Almalik & Jang, 2009).

System software team consists of the specialist in the software programming. The team

is responsible for technical knowledge about the software application during the recovery

process. The team provides the technical knowledge in regard to the software application in the

recovery plan.

Internal Audit team is responsible of the observation and oversight participation in the

recovery effort. They ensure that the plan is followed as required in regard to the financial

requirements.

Backup system currently used in Saudi Arabia in Data center recovery plan

There are many backup systems that are used in Saudi Arabia to recover the data after

flooding. They include back-up monitoring, prestige backup log, media storage media retirement

and clouding storage (Bullock & Coppola, 2012).

Back-up log

This is a kind of back up that is used to enable on all back-up servers. Information in these

back-up are reviewed on a daily bases and are transferred to a back-up referred as prestige back

up necessary disaster recovery measures are activated (Fernandes & Holmgren, 2004).

Prestige Backup Log

Prestige backup log is a strong system that enables the data centers to keep track of the

errors and damage made throughout the flooding period. They provide data status for a long

time which is used to locate various backup components such as back up tape and disks. These


backup is kept in a highly protected structure to ensure that they are not destroyed by the floods

(American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, 2011).

Media Storage

Media from Father and Grandfather Sets (original materials) are stored at an off-site

location. The media is stored in secured, and free from flood locations and transported back to

the data centers facilities after the flood to help recovery the lost data and files. In some events,

for example collapse of a building of building , repair or replacement of equipment involves

reinstall all applications from the original installation media and then locating the last usable

backup for that back up selection and restoration of the data (Oklahoma Educational Television

Authority, 2009).

Factors to consider during the backup and recovery process

Data Availability

The data center in consultation with their user community has to identify files, data and

information which are very crucial and need to be stores safely. These are file and data that have

major impacts on various organizations and they cannot avoid to loss them. Such data includes

the data that are used day to day by various organizations in the country. They then need to

identify how the data are affect by the floods and how they recovered in events of a flooding

disaster (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, 2011).

Application System and Operating System Availability

The information providers identify the operating system and application systems needed

to process the available data. They identify how the flood causes unavailability of application


system and operating system. This is important as they have to identify the backup and recovery

requirement both the operating and application systems ((Almalik & Jang, 2009).

Documentation Availability

The data centers in consultation with various organizations identify the essential

documentation to the ongoing operation of the data systems. They also need to know how the

flood affects the documentation so that they can identify the best backup systems (Oklahoma

Educational Television Authority, 2009).

Special Equipment Requirements

This is a very essential consideration as it identifies both hardware and software that

require to be replaced in order to handle data even during after flooding has occurred. There is

equipment that could become unavailable after the flooding disaster (Bullock & Coppola, 2012).

The data center has to identify how the floods make them unavailable before developing a

contingency plan for how to address the problem.

Experts to be consulted when the flooding occurs

These are personnel which are involved in emergence data recovery plan. Data center has to

identify the personal that should be consulted during the flooding. The personnel are mostly

experts working in data center. However, there are some external personnel that my need to be

notified.

The backup plan must document the following processes:

Backup and Recovery


The data centers also diversify in the storage of the data. Data system requires

organizations to have a unit where they keep some essential data especially the one used for day

to day running of the organizations. Some data are farther stored in remote locations that are far

from the location of the data centers. The essence of this is to ensure that the data are not lost

when a certain location is affected by floods. For example, sometime flooding affects some parts

of the country while others are not. In such as situations, the remote location may not be affected

by the floods and are used to recovery the data in the data centers (Fernandes & Holmgren,

2004).

Documentation Backup

The data center needs to understand to operate the backup system and applications and

understand how the information is maintained in the backup systems. Documentation backup

provide this information to the data centers. Operating and application systems and data are

easily recovered after flooding when the IT experts have review documentation and have

identified which data need to be included in the backup plans (Fernandes & Holmgren, 2004).

Special Assets Requirements

This is a list of the assets and equipment that needs to be replaced after floods has taken

place. Some backup equipment is affected and need to be replaced for the operation of the

backup system. This list contains such equipment that need to be replaced.

Contact Lists


This is a list of the individuals and organization in which the data center contact

immediately before and after flooding disaster. It involves personnel in and out of data center

that are involved in the disaster recovery plans (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and

Air-Conditioning Engineers, 2011).

5.0 Discussion

Saudi Arabia has and continues to experience floods almost every year. These flood have

a devastating effects on the on the infrastructure and buildings. At the heart of the destruction is

the data centers which contain data and information for various organizations ranging from non-

government, business and government department among others. The organizations rely on the

data center for their day to day operations. Therefore, the failure of the data center is very has a

large impacts in the organizations. Some of them are forced to close down until the data center

start to operate again (Fong & Xianggang, 2010). It is therefore, critical for Saudi Arabia to have

a disaster recovery plan that will be used to recover the data center after flooding.

Flooding affects almost all the data center facilities and systems. Data center systems are

housed in buildings that are prone to destruction after flooding. During the flooding, building are

rooted and washed away by the running waters. Some buildings, however, are able to withstand

the water forces. Water however managers to get into the building which results to destruction

and damage of the properties inside the building. Some structures located at the lower land are

more exposed to the flooding effects that the building located in the hilly and sloppy region of

the country. The flooding water sometime carries sewer materials and deposits them in buildings.

This result to more destruction to the equipment stored in them (Bullock & Coppola, 2012).


Flooding in the country affects the electric utilities. Flooding destroys power stations and

other power generating equipment and power cables. Data center requires the power to operate

and continue to provide information to various organizations. When the flooding occurs, it

destroys the power stations and cables that provide power to the data centers. The data center

cannot operate without the power which makes many organizations to stop operating.

Data centers in the country are found in major buildings in the country which have the

capacity to withstand flooding without undergoing damage. The buildings are built with strong

foundations and cannot be easy rooted water. They also located in sloppy are that are less prone

to floods. However, the buildings still experience some kind of damage which requires a

recovery plan.

Saudi Arabia has come with different emergency response procedures to address the

flooding disaster. The emergence responses are based on the past flooding events. The

emergency plans include various teams that work together in ensures that the flooding disaster

does not have advanced damage. Some of the emergency procedure includes data protection,

data backup which includes hardware-level backup and the network backup procedure

(Fernandes & Holmgren, 2004).

After the disaster has occurred, the nest step is to address the site affected by repairing the

damage and the restart the data center operations. Repair of the system involves to the repair of

the both hardware and software facilities. The data and the files are then retrieved from the

backup system and the system can state to operate again. This recovery should be short as most

organization wants to return to their normal operations immediately after the flooding stops

(CTC & Associates & California, 2009).


The final stage of the recovery plan is the post recovery activities. These activities refer

to the activities that are meat to test the performance of the systems. They validate that all the

data centers are working normally. They also validate that all the hardware and facilities are

functioning normally and they are in good conditions. Finally all these events are summarized in

form of a report which acts as a reference for future uses (Philander, 2008).

5.1 Recommendation

Saudi Arabia will continue to experience flooding which cause destruction of various

facilities and infrastructure. These floods interrupt the normal functioning of the data center

which affects many organizations in the country that rely on the information system for their day

to day operations. Since the flooding will continue to occur, there is a need to have effective

measures of handling the problem. A disaster recovery plan helps to reduce the effects of the

flood on the data centers. The present research recommends the following measures to address

damage of data center due to floods:

Buildings that are meant for the data center should be located in area that are free of

floods or are not affected much by the floods. Such places include sloppy areas of the

country that have experience less floods. No data center should be located in the lower

land, coastal regions and flat regions. These locations are prone to flood which destroys

the buildings and other facilities.

Data center buildings should be strong to mitigate the negative effects of the flooding.

Some strong buildings are able to withstand high water forces and therefore reduce the

destruction of properties in those buildings.


Data center should have strong backup system which should features in their recovery

plan. All essential information, data and files should have a copy in the backup systems

so that they can be recovered easily.

Most data centers have a detailed data center recovery plan. However, some plans are not

very comprehensive. This research recommends that the disaster recovery plans should

comprehensive and should address all the activities in the recovery stage.

5.2 Conclusion

This paper has focused on disaster recovery plan after flood for data center in Saudi

Arabia. Saudi Arabia continues to experience flood almost every year. The disaster has

devastating impacts on building and infrastructure in the country. Buildings are rooted will

infrastructure are washed away by the running water. One of the most affected systems is data

center systems. The floods damage the data center systems which sometimes may result to loss

of essential data and files. This may affect operation of many organizations that depend on the

systems for their day to day operation. To address the problem, the country has come up with

data center disaster recovery plan which helps the data center to return their normal operation.

This has reduces the time that is organizations takes before they can start to operate again after

the disaster.


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