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Streamlining External Communication for Emergency Procedures

June 22, 2025 by Jason Aw Leave a Comment

Streamlining External Communication for Emergency Procedures

Streamlining External Communication for Emergency Procedures

In the business infrastructure world, things can move very rapidly. Having to keep up with ever-growing company needs, compliance regulations, vulnerability patching, and problem resolutions keeps everyone on their feet and necessitates the ability to respond quickly and effectively. It’s one thing to keep up with all of this when dealing internally with the different stakeholders within your organization, but it’s another endeavor entirely when you have to start involving vendors and other external parties. When you have to engage with third parties for these types of emergency procedures that require quick turnaround times, it can be difficult for both sides, but there are some ways that you can make it easier for everyone. In turn, this leads to the whole process flowing more smoothly, and as one of my favorite sayings indicates, “Smooth is fast.”

Best Practices for Communicating with Vendors During Emergencies

1. Start Emergency Communication Early to Support Business Continuity

Early and proactive communication is always a good thing when planning out procedures or organizing multiple parties for the same work. This gets increasingly apparent the more urgent or short-term the planned work is. If you need people to be ready and able to help you with something, you need to communicate with them as soon as you can. This starts turning the organizational gears needed to align resources, nail down the specifics, and align on any paperwork or documentation that needs to be dealt with first. Depending on organizational requirements, some of these items absolutely have to be finished before any work can be done, so a longer delay in communication means a longer delay before the actual work that needs to be done can be started.

2. Communicate Truthfully to Improve Disaster Recovery Planning

Another one of my favorite sayings (I have many) is “Honesty is the best policy.” Honest communication is a cornerstone of effectively engaging with and organizing groups and maintaining healthy relationships. When you are communicating with external parties for these types of emergency procedures, it is crucial that, from the outset, you are being honest about what is needed and what level of priority the work is. If you understate it, then resources may not be aligned in time, paperwork may not get signed and stamped in the timeframe that you require, or additional costs or delays may be incurred. After all, how were they supposed to know without being told? On the other hand, if you overstate the urgency of the work, things may get done faster than they need to, and some items may fall by the wayside, causing complications further down the line. Additionally, if you state everything to be the highest priority regardless of whether or not it truly is, then your partners will be unable to discern the actual priority of any of the tasks, and when a high-priority emergency occurs, it may not be handled in a timely manner. Of course, you can’t tell everyone everything. Please take into account your security and compliance regulations when communicating externally, and it is more helpful to let the external parties know that you simply cannot tell them a piece of information than it is to secretly withhold it.

3. When to Call Instead of Email During Emergency Procedures

Email is a wonderful tool, and I would go as far as to say it is the backbone of the global business workspace. However, sometimes emailing just isn’t good enough. It can take a long time to hammer out details and plan for complex scenarios through emails, especially when time zone differences are in play. Hopping on even just a 1-hour call with the invested parties can save you upwards of several days of emailing back and forth. I also find that verbal conversation has a way of helping to recall and discuss smaller details that may not have made it into an email thread, and this helps to really build a comprehensive picture of what work needs to be done and when. Far too often, I’ve seen a request for a call be turned down, just to be followed by 30 (or more) emails back and forth that end up leading to a call being necessary. Imagine how much time you could save by carving out that little chunk of time to have it in the first place! Everyone gets aligned, everyone has all the information, and after that, you can email back and forth as little or as much as you need to iron out the smaller remaining details.

4. Treat Vendors as Partners to Improve External Emergency Collaboration

Organizing work between different teams, different branches in an organization, or different companies can be difficult. Everyone has their own workloads to consider, everyone has their own policies or procedures, and everyone has their own ideas of how to do the work. This is true in any scenario, and it is further exacerbated when there’s a sense of urgency hanging over everyone’s heads. This can often lead to frustrations between the different groups, as some may feel that the others are doing something the wrong way, are not being quick enough to respond, or aren’t properly hearing what you are saying. When you get into this state, it’s important to take a step back and remember that you’re not on different sides of the issue. Everyone wants to resolve the problem in the quickest and most effective way that they can. Your external partners are no exception to this, as they want to build and maintain a strong business relationship with you and make sure that they are meeting your needs and expectations. Everyone is simply trying to offer the best route that they are aware of to a successful outcome for everyone involved.

5. Stay Engaged to Complete the Emergency Response Process Smoothly

Once you are through the bulk of the work and the emergency has passed, the common reaction is to take a deep breath, sit back, and appreciate the moment. This is understandable, and there’s nothing wrong with celebrating a job well done, but you can’t let it distract or delay you from finishing strong. There’s usually going to be some paper that has to be filled out, some emails to be sent, or some spreadsheet that needs to be updated. Once you’ve taken your respite and realigned yourself, this work is best knocked out while the iron is still hot. This is especially true for your external vendors and partners, who are typically only involved for specific periods of the work relevant to the products and services that they provide for you. From their end, they may not be aware of when exactly everything is completed. It’s best to stay engaged with all involved parties through the entire process, from the first email sent to the last one crossed. Don’t make them have to chase you down for a week or two to know if everything was completed successfully. Go ahead and write that email to let them know the work is done, the storm has passed, and everyone can start tying up the little loose ends and close everything out.

Improve Business Continuity with Streamlined External Communication

The next time you have to run around to put out a metaphorical fire at the office and you need all hands on deck (even those who work on a different ship), try to remember these 5 points and put them into practice. You’ll see that everyone gets on board, organized, shipshape, and ready to sail much faster than if you had not, and this leads to a job that is done with speed and grace. This kind of workflow resonates in a positive way with everyone involved, and they will be both impressed and happy to work with a team that makes everything so streamlined. You may even get the best outcome possible, which is to inspire others to emulate the way that you have done the work because it was more effective than what they have been doing, and that is what we call strong leadership.

Ready to streamline your emergency communication and strengthen your disaster recovery strategy? Request a demo to see how SIOS can help you build a more resilient, coordinated response plan.

Author: Matthew Pollard, CX – SIOS Software Engineer, Team Lead

Reproduced with permission from SIOS

Filed Under: Clustering Simplified Tagged With: Business Continuity

The Best Rolling Upgrade Strategy to Enhance Business Continuity

June 8, 2025 by Jason Aw Leave a Comment

The Best Rolling Upgrade Strategy to Enhance Business Continuity (1)

The Best Rolling Upgrade Strategy to Enhance Business Continuity

When it comes to maintaining uptime, few things matter more than how you handle upgrades. For many IT pros, the traditional approach—taking systems offline, upgrading everything at once, and praying for the best—is a recipe for late nights and unexpected calls. That’s where rolling upgrades come in.

A rolling upgrade strategy allows you to upgrade your systems incrementally, node by node or component by component, without bringing the entire environment down. It’s a powerful way to maintain business continuity during maintenance windows and system updates. In this blog post, we’ll break down what a rolling upgrade strategy is, why it’s critical for high availability, and how to do it right.

Understanding Rolling Upgrades

A rolling upgrade is the process of updating systems or applications in a phased, sequential manner rather than all at once. This allows different parts of your environment to continue running while others are being updated.

Key components of a rolling update strategy:

  • Incremental Updates: Upgrade one node or service at a time, verifying each step before moving on.
  • Phased Deployment: Roll out new features or patches in phases to isolate issues early.
  • Rollback Capabilities: Be prepared to revert changes if something goes wrong, without affecting the whole system.

Rolling upgrades are especially critical in high-availability environments where downtime is not an option. By carefully planning and executing these upgrades, you can keep systems online and ensure customer satisfaction.

The Importance of a Rolling Upgrade Strategy for Business Continuity

Why should you care about rolling upgrades? Simple: they minimize disruption and maximize uptime.

  • Minimizing Downtime: Your business doesn’t stop just because you’re pushing a patch. Rolling upgrades keep operations running.
  • Enhanced System Reliability: Each phase of the upgrade includes validation, which helps identify and address problems before they escalate.
  • Real-World Impact: For businesses in healthcare, finance, or retail, even a few minutes of downtime can lead to lost revenue and reputation damage.

With a sound rolling upgrade strategy, you don’t just upgrade your system—you upgrade your resilience.

Challenges in Implementing Rolling Upgrades

Rolling upgrades offer plenty of benefits, but they’re not without challenges. Implementing them successfully takes planning, coordination, and discipline.

  • Precise Scheduling and Communication: Teams must be aligned to ensure the upgrade process doesn’t cause unexpected disruptions.
  • Version Compatibility: Not all components play nicely together during staggered upgrades. Make sure your systems support running mixed versions during the transition.
  • Resource Constraints: Staging environments, QA cycles, and rollback plans all require time and staff.

Avoiding these pitfalls begins with knowing what to expect—and having a plan to address them.

Best Practices for a Successful Rolling Upgrade Strategy

Here’s how to get it right:

  1. Know Your System: Understand your architecture, application dependencies, and how each component interacts.
  2. Use a Staging Environment: Rehearse the upgrade in a lab environment before deploying it to production. Identify failure points and refine rollback procedures.
  3. Segment Your Environment: Divide your system into upgradeable units—nodes, services, regions—so you can update them one at a time.
  4. Rigorous Testing: Validate functionality after each phase. Smoke tests, health checks, and monitoring tools should be active throughout.
  5. Rollback Plan: Have a tested rollback plan in place for each phase. Don’t roll forward unless the current phase is stable.
  6. Communicate Clearly: Inform stakeholders of the schedule, expected impact, and escalation paths. Keep support, operations, and end-users in the loop.
  7. Automate Where Possible: Use orchestration tools and CI/CD pipelines to reduce human error and accelerate the process.

A successful rolling upgrade strategy isn’t just technical—it’s organizational. Everyone needs to be on the same page, from engineers to execs.

Implementing Your Rolling Upgrade Strategy

So, how do you start?

  • Assessment and Planning: Identify what components need upgrading and assess their dependencies.
  • Tool Selection: Choose automation and orchestration tools that support phased rollouts (like Ansible, Jenkins, or Kubernetes Operators).
  • Execution: Start with low-risk components or non-critical nodes. Monitor closely and validate before proceeding to the next phase.
  • Post-Upgrade Review: Document lessons learned, evaluate system performance, and refine the process for next time.

Example: A retail chain upgraded its POS infrastructure across hundreds of stores using a rolling strategy. By upgrading five stores per night and verifying success before proceeding, they avoided widespread outages and maintained 24/7 operation.

Benefits of the Best Rolling Upgrade Strategy

When done right, rolling upgrades do more than just keep the lights on.

  • Improved Business Continuity: Updates become routine rather than risky events.
  • Enhanced Customer Experience: No disruptions mean no lost transactions or service interruptions.
  • Future-Proofing: A well-oiled rolling upgrade process makes adopting new tech faster and safer.

Rolling upgrades aren’t just about survival—they’re about thriving in a world where uptime is non-negotiable.

Rolling Upgrade Strategy and Solutions

To wrap things up:

  • Rolling upgrades are a proven method to minimize downtime and boost system reliability.
  • Challenges exist, but they can be managed with the right planning and tools.
  • Best practices—like automation, segmentation, and clear communication—are key to success.

At SIOS, we understand the value of uptime. Our high availability solutions support rolling upgrades across Windows and Linux environments, helping you keep your critical applications online, even during updates. Whether you’re running SQL Server, SAP, or custom applications, SIOS provides the tools to execute a smart, seamless rolling upgrade strategy.

Is your upgrade strategy up to the challenge? If not, maybe it’s time to roll with a better plan. Request a demo today!

Author: Dave Bermingham, Senior Technical Evangelist at SIOS

Reproduced with permission from SIOS

Filed Under: Clustering Simplified Tagged With: Business Continuity

Video: Everything you need to know about High Availability, Backup and Disaster Recovery

July 17, 2024 by Jason Aw Leave a Comment

Everything you need to know about High Availability, Backup and Disaster Recovery

Video: Everything you need to know about High Availability, Backup and Disaster Recovery

In this video, Margaret Hoagland, VP of Global Sales and Marketing at SIOS Technology, explains terms and jargons such as high availability (HA), backup, and disaster recovery (DR). “Business continuity means the policies, the systems and the personal responsibilities that are all required to be coordinated in the event that there is a threat to the continuity of operations of a business,” says Hoagland.

Some of the topics covered include:

  • What do terms like high availability, backup and disaster recovery really mean?
  • What teams are responsible for these practices?
  • What is business continuity?
  • Are business continuity and disaster recovery the same thing or two cases of the same coin, or two different things?
  • What’s the difference between RTO, RPO and high availability?
  • How different is backup from high availability?
  • How about replication? Isn’t backup the same as replication?
  • What do you mean by resiliency?
  • How critical are these practices for a business?
  • Is high availability only applicable to data centers or is it also applicable to cloud?
  • What’s the difference between SLA and four nines of availability?
  • Are there regulatory requirements for high availability?
  • Advice for businesses.

Let’s deep dive into these topics in the video above.

Reproduced with permission from SIOS

Filed Under: Clustering Simplified Tagged With: Business Continuity, High Availability and DR

Webinar: Business Continuity Considerations for Hybrid and Cloud-based SQL Server Deployments

June 13, 2023 by Jason Aw Leave a Comment

Webinar: Business Continuity Considerations for Hybrid and Cloud-based SQL Server Deployments

Register for the On-Demand Webinar

Availability is one of the core tenets for any SQL Server deployment – the business needs to stay up and running. This session will cover how achieving that goal for hybrid and cloud-only deployments of SQL Server is both similar to as well as different from purely on-premises (physical or virtual) configurations. You’ll also get top tips, tricks, dos, and don’ts for successfully deploying and administering Always On Availability Groups, Failover Cluster Instances, and more to be an availability hero when you are not just deploying on-premises solutions anymore.

Reproduced with permission from SIOS

Filed Under: Clustering Simplified Tagged With: Business Continuity, Cloud, High Availability and DR, Hybrid Cloud, SQL Server, Symposium

Webinar: Understanding Disaster Recovery Options for SQL Server

May 24, 2019 by Jason Aw Leave a Comment

Understanding Disaster Recovery Options for SQL Server

Webinar: Understanding Disaster Recovery Options for SQL Server

Webinar: Understanding Disaster Recovery Options for SQL Server

Yes – you need a disaster recovery plan! Your SQL Server data depends on it.

On this webinar, Dave Bermingham, Microsoft Datacenter and Cloud MVP, explains the difference between Disaster Recovery, Business Continuity and High Availability and why each is a critical component for any business’ survival. Discover what key components should be included in your Disaster Recovery, Business Continuity plans and explore some of the tools available to help achieve your Disaster Recovery, Business Continuity goals.

Concerned about end of support for SQL Server 2008?  See how SIOS helps customers prepare for SQL Server 2008 EOS.

Filed Under: News posts Tagged With: Business Continuity, disaster recovery, disaster recovery - DR, High Availability, SQL Server

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