Guest author: David Kinlaw, Practice Manager, Protection Services
Cloud computing is quickly becoming the standard, changing the way we do business. The benefits of cloud computing are seemingly endless – the cloud can help reduce costs, streamline processes, provide added flexibility and improve accessibility. But what does the cloud mean for disaster recovery?
It offers a cost effective solution.
Before the cloud, a disaster recovery plan was too expensive for many small to medium sized businesses to adopt. Now companies can adjust the cost and performance, making it possible to put a DR system into place to protect their IT infrastructure.
Shutterstock/Slavoljub Pantelic
It promises faster recovery times.
Conventional data recovery involved copying data to tapes, storing the tapes offsite and relying on cold sites. Delays often occurred during the collection and transfer of the offsite data to the disaster recovery center. Recovering data this way can take days – possibly even weeks.
Warm sites, which are now a viable option for most businesses due to the cloud, implement disaster recovery in a matter of minutes or hours with a lower error rate than traditional DR.
It’s more efficient.
Traditional disaster recovery leaves room for error. When data from traditional storage tapes on different drives, there is a significant rate of failure. There is also trouble if a network isn’t configured properly at the cold site. These types of errors aren’t cause for concern in the cloud, as the virtual server is hardware independent and less prone to typical physical world issues.
In addition, DR recovery in the cloud has multisite capabilities, which allows for disaster testing without excessive cost. How can you be sure your disaster recovery plan is effective if you’re unable to test it?
Have you adopted a cloud-based disaster recovery strategy?