? To outsource or not, that is the question: What is the level of service you'll need? Is there an in-house IT expert who has the bandwidth to manage server clustering and disk mirroring? If not, consider bringing in your solutions provider to do it for you, or even consider hosted services to support your business-critical infrastructure.

? Don't forget business continuity/disaster recovery: As clustering and mirroring are part of a healthy business continuity/disaster recovery plan, you should test your systems regularly. The frequency with which an organization can test depends on the disaster-recovery budget, but as a benchmark, SMBs should test no less than twice annually. If it is impossible to test the entire system, periodically test the most critical applications and systems.

According to Gartner, improving availability will help to reduce direct loss of revenue and loss of future revenue, revenue loss through failure to meet contractual obligations, productivity loss or overtime costs, and damaged reputation. Remember, your system is your business, and your business is your system.