Failover

In the event of a system-wide failure, due to any number of reasons (fire, power outage, complete server/system shutdown, etc.), many companies have a procedure in place for their systems to failover or switch to a backup system, making sure business can continue as normal. This is especially important for systems day-to-day processing systems, like banks, production facilities, and retail stores. The backup system is usually located in another building, possibly in another city and state.

The failover system is a mirror image of the main system (redundant system), so that little or no data is lost. The failover process can take several minutes to several hours, depending on the complexity of the system and may require human intervention, depending on the design.