Patent Application Titled “Recovery Maturity Index (Rmi) – Based Control Of Disaster Recovery” Published Online (USPTO 20210149779)

2021 JUN 29 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Information Technology Business Daily -- According to news reporting originating from Washington, D.C., by NewsRx journalists, a patent application by the inventor Thaker, Darpan (Herndon, VA, US), filed on May 6, 2020, was made available online on May 20, 2021.

No assignee for this patent application has been made.

Reporters obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “As Information Technology (IT) systems have become increasingly critical to the smooth operation of an organization, and arguably the economy as a whole, the importance of ensuring continued operation and rapid recovery of those systems has increased. Preparation for recovery of systems involves a significant investment of time and money, with the aim of ensuring minimal loss in the event of a disruptive event.

“Prior to selecting a disaster recovery (DR) strategy, a disaster recovery administrator first refers to their organization’s business continuity plan which may indicate expected metrics such as a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) or Recovery Time Objective (RTO) for various IT functions (such as payroll, order processing, accounting, manufacturing, etc.). These metrics are then mapped to the underlying systems and infrastructure that support those functions. The DR planner can determine the most suitable recovery strategy for each system.

“In many cases, an organization may elect to use an outsourced disaster recovery service provider to provide a stand-by site and systems, rather than using their own facilities, increasingly via cloud computing.

“It is often the case that planning for disaster recovery is thus coordinated between an organization’s responsible administrator(s) and the outside service provider. These disaster recovery plans are often expensive to devise, and it can become difficult for the personnel on both sides, the customer and the service provider, to keep up with rapidly changing computing environments. In one approach, which may in part or in full take the form of a database, can store information on available resources such as replication technologies for implementing disaster recovery plans. The recovery documentation can include information concerning infrastructure and best practices that should be observed when implementing the disaster recovery plan.

“The recovery documentation should accurately represent the configuration of the protected IT environment, as well as how the customer expects systems to optimally behave during a disaster or a during some other planned event such as a recovery test. The service provider can then properly advise the customer with its best recommendations for how to recover the environment in the event of a disaster.

“It is often the case that the disaster recovery service provider does not manage the configuration of the protected IT environment. Thus, the service provider typically does not have direct visibility into the nuances of how the affected data processing systems work or how they are configured or their expected optimal behavior. Any changes made by the customer to its configuration or to the desired optimal recovery state can also potentially impact the ability for the service provider to successfully recover the affected systems.

“One known solution is to develop a Recovery Maturity Model (RMM) that characterizes a protected IT environment’s expected ability to successfully execute a DR test or DR recovery. See for example, U.S. Pat. No. 9,208,006 assigned to Sungard Availability Services LP, the assignee of the present application, which is incorporated by reference in its entirety.

“Technologies that can assist with orderly recovery include Recovery Execution System (RES) that uses programmatically generated workflows, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 9,836,365 also assigned to Sungard Availability Services LP, the assignee of the present application, and which is incorporated by reference in its entirety.

“Still other approaches, such as Touch Free Disaster Recovery, can leverage RES and automated configuration discovery tools to identify and recover only those resources which are within a certain scope. See for example, U.S. Pat. No. 10,210,079 also assigned to Sungard Availability Services LP, the assignee of the present application, and which is incorporated by reference.”

In addition to obtaining background information on this patent application, NewsRx editors also obtained the inventor’s summary information for this patent application: “Even with planning and guidance from an outside service provider who specializes in disaster recovery (DR), a given IT production environment may simply not yet be ready for even executing a test of a disaster recovery plan, never mind being ready to successfully accomplish an actual recovery.

“Backup and replication discovery tools, and more sophisticated automation capabilities such as the Recovery Execution System (RES) or Touch Free Disaster Recovery (TFDR) mentioned above enjoy increasing use. These automation tools have become widespread enough that they should be considered in evaluating the robustness of a recovery strategy. In some cases, it is the customer’s decision whether to use a particular automation capability or not-in other instances, external service providers implement these automation tools on behalf of the customer. Regardless of how they are managed, if a protected environment is not using an available automation tool, those state(s) should consider since their use may make recovery more robust by eliminating human errors.

“What is needed is an approach that first determines readiness of an Information Technology (IT) production environment to execute a disaster recovery plan, prior to actually executing or finalizing the plan parameters. The approach should take into account whether automation tools are being properly leveraged. With the approach provided here, a Recovery Maturity Index (RMI) is used to determine whether a particular production environment can be expected, with some level of confidence, to successfully execute a disaster recovery. The RMI is based on a quantitative analysis of the production environment in terms of certain elements, such as the extent to which Life Cycle Management (RLCM) is complete, what kind of automation capabilities are used for recovery, and/or what are the recovery trend and test history. Scoring these elements then arrives at a Recovery Maturity Index (RMI) that then informs the administrator of one or more criteria and/or actions indicative of successful recovery execution. Scoring may be based on a summation of the scoring elements, which may be a weighted summation, to provide an overall RMI score indicative of the maturity of the IT environment to successfully complete a recovery.

“The RMI provides specific and targeted quantitative analysis around categories of automation components that the disaster recovery service provider deems necessary for successful recovery execution within the service provider’s domain. The provider of the DR services is typically familiar with the various categories of automation components and services, which may include the aforementioned RES (TFDR), or other automation tools such as Automated Production Configuration Discovery, Automated Backup and Replication Discovery and the like.

“Changes in a production environment is a constant process, and failure to reflect those changes in the recovery environment is one of main reasons recovery plans fail. Recovery Life Cycle Management (LLCM) is a process defined to incorporate a DR team (either an internal team or a service provider team) into a Production Change Management process. This is to ensure that all approved production changes are thoroughly reviewed by the DR team, so that any affected recovery plans and procedures are updated to ensure that IT environment is recoverable at any time. RLCM is thus a critical factor to be considered for RMI. Often times, customers of DR service providers do not provide enough emphasis on RLCM, leading to delayed or failed recovery of systems/applications during a planned recovery test or actual disaster recovery event.

“Automation components also play a critical role in overall DR recovery. It is imperative to implement automation tools when available (such as application discovery or RES) to avoid human errors, increase recovery success rate, and reduce overall recovery time by eliminating manual recovery to great extent.

“Prior histories of successful DR tests also demonstrate maturity of the DR plan and procedures, and a positive recovery trend exhibiting reduced recovery time over successive recovery tests can also be factored into the RMI score.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A method for determining disaster recovery readiness for a data processing environment which includes one or more physical and/or virtual data processing infrastructure elements, and where a disaster recovery (DR) service provides disaster recovery for the infrastructure elements, the method comprising: a. storing information in a Recovery Maturity Index (RMI) representing one or more criteria indicative of expected successful DR test, the RMI further depending on a recovery maturity elements, and the recovery maturity elements comprise at least Recovery Life Cycle Management, and infrastructure component-related automation aspects related to one or more of automated storage and backup discovery, automated configuration discovery/application dependency, automated recovery execution, and centralized document repository b. accepting data, via a user interface, representing one or more evaluations of one or more of the criteria specified in the RMI, where the user interface accepts the evaluations as a numerical score for each infrastructure element type and each further recovery maturity element, to thereby determine a matrix of numerical scores; c. determining if the environment is ready for Disaster Recovery by comparing one or more of the evaluation(s) to predetermined information; and d. if the environment is determined to be ready for Disaster Recovery testing, enabling at least one DR test for execution.

“2. The method of claim 1 wherein the recovery execution further comprises: programmatically generating a master workflow with multiple phases, the master workflow generated from the configuration data for the configurable items within a scope for the recovery.

“3. The method of claim 1 wherein the recovery maturity elements further comprise one or more recovery test histories.

“4. The method of claim 1 wherein the recovery maturity elements further comprise one or more recovery trends.

“5. The method of claim 1 where if a sum of the numerical scores in the matrix is below a defined score, it is determined that the environment is not likely ready for Disaster Recovery, and if the sum of numerical scores is above a second defined score, it is determined that the environment is likely ready for DR.

“6. The method of claim 5 where the sum of the numerical scores is a weighted sum applying a different weight to at least two of the aspects of the RMI.

“7. The method of claim 1 additionally comprising: executing the DR test within a disaster recovery environment that is separate from the production environment.

“8. The method of claim 1 additionally comprising: providing further information related to one or more of the aspects of the RMI if the environment is determined to not be ready for DR testing.

“9. The method of claim 8 additionally where: d. the user interface accepts revised data representing one or more evaluations; and e. a second step of determining if the environment is ready for DR testing based on the revised data.

“10. An apparatus for determining disaster recovery readiness for a data processing environment which includes one or more physical and/or virtual data processing infrastructure elements, and where a disaster recovery (DR) service provides disaster recovery for the infrastructure elements, the apparatus comprising one or more processors for executing program code, the code for: a. storing information in a Recovery Maturity Index (RMI) representing one or more criteria indicative of expected successful DR test, the RMI further depending on a recovery maturity elements, and the recovery maturity elements comprise at least Recovery Life Cycle Management, and infrastructure component-related automation aspects related to one or more of automated storage and backup discovery automated discovery/dependency, automated recovery execution, and centralized document repository b. accepting data, via a user interface, representing one or more evaluations of one or more of the criteria specified in the RMI, where the user interface accepts the evaluations as a numerical score for each infrastructure element type and each further recovery maturity element, to thereby determine a matrix of numerical scores; c. determining if the environment is ready for DR testing by comparing one or more of the evaluation(s) to predetermined information; and d. if the environment is determined to be ready for DR testing, enabling at least one DR test for execution.

“11. The apparatus of claim 10 wherein the code for recovery execution further comprises: programmatically generating a master workflow with multiple phases, the master workflow generated from the configuration data for the configurable items within a scope for the recovery.

“12. The apparatus of claim 11 wherein the recovery maturity elements further comprise one or more recovery test histories.

“13. The apparatus of claim 11 wherein the recovery maturity elements further comprise one or more recovery trends.

“14. The apparatus of claim 11 where if a sum of the numerical scores in the matrix is below a defined score, it is determined that the environment is not likely ready for DR testing, and if the sum of numerical scores is above a second defined score, it is determined that the environment is likely ready for DR testing.

“15. The apparatus of claim 14 where the sum of the numerical scores is a weighted sum applying a different weight to at least two of the aspects of the RMI.

“16. The apparatus of claim 11 additionally comprising: executing the DR test within a disaster recovery environment that is separate from the production environment.

“17. The apparatus of claim 11 additionally comprising: providing further information related to one or more of the aspects of the RMI if the environment is determined to not be ready for DR testing.

“18. The apparatus of claim 17 additionally where: d. the user interface accepts revised data representing one or more evaluations; and e. a second step of determining if the environment is ready for DR testing based on the revised data.”

For more information, see this patent application: Thaker, Darpan. Recovery Maturity Index (Rmi) - Based Control Of Disaster Recovery. Filed May 6, 2020 and posted May 20, 2021. Patent URL: https://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220210149779%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20210149779&RS=DN/20210149779

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