ABSTRACT
A disaster recovery plan that takes into account backup methods as the use of hot sites or cold sites without giving due consideration to link-restoral methods ignores a significant area of potential problems. Corporations can use several methods that help protect their data networks against prolonged downtime and data loss. The equipment aspect of minimizing data loss entails the use of redundant circuitry, components, and subsystems that are activated automatically when various local area network (LAN) devices fail, thereby preventing data loss and maintaining network reliability. The mesh topology is reliable because it provides a diversity of routes; however, route diversity entails adding more physical links to the network, which typically inflates the cost of networking. A network is highly available provides services immediately to users, whereas a network that suffers from low availability typically forces users to wait for access. The LAN is a data-intensive environment requiring special precautions to safeguard one of the organization's most valuable assets—information.
