Configuration Database GOCDB Availability and Continuity Plan

Main

EGI.eu operations services

Support

Documentation

Tools

Activities

Performance

Technology

Catch-all Services

Resource Allocation

Security

Documentation menu:

Home •

Manuals •

Procedures •

Training •

Other •

Contact ►

For:

VO managers •

Administrators

Back to main page: Services Availability Continuity Plans

Introduction

This page reports on the Availability and Continuity Plan for the GOCDB and it is the result of the risks assessment conducted for this service: a series of risks and treats has been identified and analysed, along with the correspondent countermeasures currently in place. Whenever a countermeasure is not considered satisfactory for either avoiding or reducing the likelihood of the occurrence of a risk, or its impact, it is agreed with the service provider a new treatment for improving the availability and continuity of the service. The process is concluded with an availability and continuity test.

	Last	Next
Risks assessment	2018-05-03	2019 May
Av/Co plan and test	2018-05-28	2019 May

Performances

The performances reports in terms of Availability and Reliability are produced by ARGO on an almost real time basis and they are also collected every 6 months into the Documentation Database (last period July 2017 - December 2017.

In the OLA it was agreed the following performances targets, on a monthly basis:

• Availability: 99%
• Reliability 99%

Over the past years, GOCDB hadn't particular Av/Co issues highlighted by the performances that need to be further investigated.

Risks assessment and management

For more details, please look at the google spreadsheet. We will report here a summary of the assessment.

Risks analysis (to update)

Risk id	Risk description	Affected components	Established measures	Risk level	Expected duration of downtime / time for recovery	Comment
1	Service unavailable / loss of data due to hardware failure	Web portal and PI, Database	GOCDB has a separate failover instance. If the web server or database machines failed and were not readily restartable the failover would be engaged.	Low	In case an instance must be instantiated from backups can take up to two-three working hours. In case latest backups are not available some data must be re-generate from the central accounting repositories and this may take up to two hours.	the measures already in place are considered satisfactory and risk level is acceptable
2	Service unavailable / loss of data due to software failure	Web portal and PI	GOCDB has a separate failover instance. If the web server or GOCDB software failed and were not readily restartable the failover would be engaged. As the database is unaffected, all data would eventually be propagated to the failover within an hour.	Low	One to two working hours	the measures already in place are considered satisfactory and risk level is acceptable
3	service unavailable / loss of data due to human error	Web portal and PI, Database	Access to production systems limited, service and procedures documented internally, configuration of web portal and PI is backed up daily, database backed up hourly for failover	Low	Two to Three working hours.	the measures already in place are considered satisfactory and risk level is acceptable
4	service unavailable for network failure (Network outage with causes external of the site)	Web portal and PI, Database	GOCDB has a separate failover instance at a STFC data centre located at a different site. If the was a network failure at RAL and was not readily restartable the failover would be engaged.	Low	Close to zero, less than one hour.	the measures already in place are considered satisfactory and risk level is acceptable
5	Unavailability of key technical and support staff (holidays period, sickness, ...)	Web portal and PI, Database	GOCDB technical / support staff try not to be on leave at the same time for a prolonged period. A cover person, capable of handling tickets and investigating minor problems, is assigned in the case of short term absences or an 'At Risk' is declared.	Low	Within the OLA targets for operational actions Longer periods in case of bugs or maintenance (one week) because not all the personnel can develop patches to the code.	the measures already in place are considered satisfactory and risk level is acceptable
6	Major disruption in the data centre. Fire, flood or electric failure for example	Web portal and PI, Database	GOCDB runs on UPS so should remain operational in the event of electrical failure. In the case of other, long lasting, data centre disruption, the failover would be engaged.	Low	1-2 weeks, the time to deploy recover operational status at CESGA or the service to another resource centre partner of the NGI	the measures already in place are considered satisfactory and risk level is acceptable
7	Major security incident. The system is compromised by external attackers and needs to be reinstalled and restored.	Web portal and PI, Database	The failover would be engaged while security incidents are being investigated	Low	1-2 work hours. In case new host certificates are required, up to 2 days.	the measures already in place are considered satisfactory and risk level is acceptable
8	(D)DOS attack. The service is unavailable because of a coordinated DDOS.	Web portal and PI	The number of requests over time are monitored so any abnormal increase in traffic or response time would be noticed	Low	Depending on the attack, few hours maximum	the measures already in place are considered satisfactory and risk level is acceptable

Outcome

The level of all the identified risks is acceptable and the countermeasures already adopted are considered satisfactory

Availability and Continuity test

The proposed A/C test will focus on a recovery scenario: the service is supposed to have been disrupted and needs to be reinstalled from scratch. Typically this covers the risks 1,2, and 7. The last backup of the data will be used for restoring the service, verifying how much information will be lost, and the time spent will be measured.

Performing this test will be useful to spot any issue in the recovery procedures of the service.

Revision History

Version	Authors	Date	Comments
	Alessandro Paolini	2018-08-10	first draft, discussing with the provider