Unplanned downtime can be severely damaging for large organizations, and truly disastrous for start-ups that do not have the resources to adequately recover from a serious outage.
As such it is obviously something you should aim to avoid, so here are a few steps you can take and strategies you can employ to avoid mistakes and keep your database running smoothly.
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Table of Contents
Monitor performance & fix problems quickly
Being on the ball when it comes to database performance is one of the best ways to limit the likelihood of downtime, because if you follow useful tips on performance tuning, you will also be able to tell when something is going awry.
The sooner you detect an issue using modern database monitoring tools, the sooner you can deal with it. If you do not act promptly when problems rear their ugly heads, you could suffer far worse consequences at a later date, so it pays to be vigilant and to avoid procrastination when it comes to database monitoring and maintenance.
Create a contingency plan
Even the most carefully monitored and consistently maintained database can succumb to unexpected downtime, so it is best to be prepared for this eventuality and plan to have a backup which can kick in to ensure complete continuity for employees and customers alike.
Relying on a remotely hosted database infrastructure to act as a failsafe if your primary hardware resources are taken out of action is worthwhile, and it is important to consider that any costs involved in putting this plan into action will probably be easily justifiable when compared with the expense of recovering from an outage if you did not have a backup available.
Avoid disruption with routine downtime
As mentioned earlier, a certain amount of database downtime is unavoidable as part of the process of keeping the infrastructure ticking over consistently.
The key point to consider here is how you fit scheduled downtime into the routine of your organization to minimize the amount of disruption it creates.
This is all about making sure that teams talk to one another and that all requirements are taken into account when planning for maintenance-related downtime. Anyone who is blindsided by the sudden and undesirable unavailability of resources they require to do their job could rightly be displeased with how the organization as a whole is being run, so having an open dialogue with regards to this matter is best.
Calculate future requirements
Finally, database downtime and general poor performance can come about because of a failure to appreciate that the needs of the start-up have outstripped the abilities of the existing infrastructure.
Thankfully this should not happen overnight, and by looking into usage levels and seeing how storage requirements are changing over time, you can calculate the likely useful lifespan of your database and set in motion the events needed to implement an upgrade at a later date.
In short, database downtime is eminently avoidable; you just need to make sure your start-up does not get complacent about this issue.
