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Old 5th April 2012
ocicat ocicat is offline
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There is no one way to come up with a contingency plan, but I will give you some points to think about. Assuming you only have one "server" you consider to be "in production":
  • What is the backup schedule? If the "server" goes down for whatever reason, can you simply restore from backup files? How old can a backup be before it is no longer viable? Where are backup files stored? If this is done on the same premises as where the server resides, a fire could destroy it all.
  • If the decision is made to install a fresh copy of the operating system, do you install the same version which was previously on the server, or is a newer version used? Has any testing been done to ensure that the configuration which you will use doesn't do something unforeseen on a newer version? Is there duplicate hardware which can be used for testing? Do you keep spare disks on hand?
  • When it comes to providing a 24x7 service, is there any chance for creating redundancy? In this manner, is one server goes down, the service may limp along on the remaining server, but the service remains up.
  • Can install/update customization scripts be used? For OpenBSD, this is covered in Section 4.14 of the FAQ. J65nko also wrote up comments here. Other threads here on the forum discuss using customizing scripts too.
There is certainly more to this topic, but this should get you started. Others might contribute their thoughts.

Lastly, while I understand why your question focuses on "can this hardware be used for providing 24x7 services?", it is not necessarily the right question to ask. A better approach would be to ask "How important is my service, & how do I optimize uptime given the hardware available?"
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