Failover and failback are crucial to effective business continuity

In today’s digital landscape, businesses must have a strong disaster recovery plan in place. A disaster can strike at any time, whether natural or man-made, and it is essential to be prepared to mitigate any potential damage.

Two key components of a strong disaster recovery plan for any wireless broadband network are failover and failback. These terms may sound similar, but they have distinct functionalities. Each operation provides essential capabilities in the event of a disaster. Notably, both operations complement each other, and businesses looking to maximize their business continuity should consider combining them.

In this blog, we will delve deeper into the differences between failover and failback, how the two operations support each other, and how they can benefit your business.

Failover prevents loss of business continuity in case of network failures or outages

Failover is the process of automatically switching to a recovery site, device, or virtual machine (VM) when the primary system or device fails or goes through an outage. This ensures continuous operations and prevents any downtime that may impact business productivity and revenue. In the case of 5G fixed wireless access, failover can be achieved using secondary routers that take over the connectivity when the primary router fails.

Failover works by constantly monitoring the health and status of the primary system. In the case of a network failure or outage, a failover system seamlessly transitions to a secondary router for connectivity. This is done through automated processes and workflows within the secondary router that are triggered as soon as the primary system goes down.

Failback maintains business continuity when transitioning back to primary network

Failback is the process of returning to the primary site after failover operations have been completed. It involves transferring workloads and data back to the primary system once it is up and running again. This is crucial to maintaining data integrity and ensuring that the primary system is ready to resume normal operations.

The failback process typically involves replicating any data changes made during the failover operation back to the primary system. This can be done through data replication and change data capture techniques to ensure that all changes are accurately transferred. Once the primary system is available, the failback process can be initiated through automation and orchestration tools, minimizing any manual intervention.

In the case of connectivity failback when the primary router comes back online, the secondary router automatically transfers any changes made during the failover process back to the primary system, ensuring accuracy and minimizing potential data loss. This not only saves time and effort for IT teams but also ensures a smooth and uninterrupted workflow for businesses.

Failover and failback provide complementary strengths

Failover and failback each provide business value. Failover ensures business continuity during an outage or emergency, ensuring businesses can maintain operations and avoid costly downtime. This unbroken connectivity also ensures that data replication can happen constantly between primary and secondary systems, minimizing data loss when networks go down unexpectedly. This ability to always maintain services without loss of data maximizes business availability, ensuring delivery of the best possible experience and most constant access for customers, preventing the negative impact downtime can have on business reputation.

But the primary goal of any business in case of an outage is getting back onto its primary network with data and workflows intact.

This is where failback systems come in. These automated systems greatly reduce the need for manual interventions to bring data back onto the primary network and connect workflows to ensure information and efforts that were used on the backup network aren’t unnecessarily replicated. Businesses keep all their information and progress without requiring manual duplication by staff, saving time and resources for employees to focus on more productive work than simply getting back up online.

Inseego devices combine failover and failback capabilities

Inseego’s all-in-one 5G fixed wireless access routers provide high-speed internet connectivity, act as failover solutions, and provide failback capabilities as well, ensuring your business has its network needs covered from optimal conditions, through outages, and back into normal operations.

Seamless failover is provided with industry-leading 5G or 4G/LTE connections and dual SIM support. This ensures that if a primary router failure or outage occurs, Inseego devices have reliable backup connections for their secondary router to seamlessly take over, allowing them to continue supporting business operations without any interruptions.

Inseego’s failover solutions also support automation and orchestration, simplifying and accelerating failover and failback. This eliminates the need for businesses to spend time and resources on manual failover operations. Failback support ensures that when an outage is over, your business maintains continuity without losing data, replicating workflows, or requiring manual intervention.

Contact us to learn how your business can benefit from Inseego’s failover and failback solutions.