Disaster Recovery for Lasernet Keep

This article provides information and guidance on how to approach the recovery and restoration of Lasernet Keep 11.0 and later in a disaster scenario. It applies only to standalone installations.

Overview

If a disaster occurs, you typically need to do the following to recover the Keep system:

• Replace failed hardware or redeploy a virtual machine.

• Reinstall software using the Installation Guide.

• Restore system data from backups using the Backup and Restore Lasernet Keep guide.

Note

Recovery steps depend on your system configuration and the type of failure. Review the following sections carefully before starting the recovery process.

Server Hardware Failure

Where available, switch to a preconfigured disaster recovery (DR) server to minimize downtime. If a DR server is not in place, either:

• Install Keep on a new standalone server.

• Replace faulty hardware on the existing server, and then reinstall Keep.

Virtual Machine Failures

If Keep is deployed as a virtual machine (VM), restoring the VM from backup is often the quickest recovery option. If this is not possible, read the following sections to reinstall and restore Keep.

Keep Server Software Recovery

When reinstalling Keep, it is important to use the same software version as the original system. If these files are not available from backup, contact Lasernet Support.

If you have a backup of the original .properties file, you can use it to perform a silent, automated installation, following the Installation Guide.

After reinstalling Keep, use the Backup and Restore Lasernet Keep guide to restore the following folders and synchronize them with the Keep database:

• Documents archive folder

• Chunks folder

Software Licensing

The Keep license is tied to the database server hostname and database name. Therefore, only changes to the database server itself trigger a new requirement. For this reason, failover of the application's active-passive setup would not trigger a license change.

If license activation fails after recovery, you can use Keep in evaluation mode, which allows the system to run for 30 days without a full license. This should give you enough to get your system up and running again whilst you contact Lasernet Support for assistance.

Database Server Recovery

If the database server fails, restore from the most recent backup. Make sure that you restore the following from the same backup as the database:

• Documents archive folder

• Chunks folder

• Encryption master password (if enabled)

You must restore from the same backup because the database contains metadata records, while the documents archive folder contains the associated image files, such as scanned PDFs. Restoring mismatched backups may result in missing or inaccessible documents.

System Configuration

Refer to the Lasernet Keep System Requirements for information on the minimum requirements to install the Keep server.