Your most valuable asset is your data. Without it, you lose revenue, progress, and customers. Data is the backbone of any modern-day business, so since cyber-related disasters are getting harder to predict, it's only natural to want to prepare against the impact. So, to do that, you’ll need a reliable disaster recovery plan - either made by your IT team or cyber security managed service providers to help you recuperate and mitigate damages as fast as possible.
You can integrate a disaster recovery strategy traditionally or through the cloud. And the approaches you take depend on your goals and vulnerabilities.
Today, we’ll cover disaster recovery, why you need it in your cloud environment, and how it benefits your business in the long run.
What is Disaster Recovery?
Disaster recovery refers to the plan that restores operations into an IT infrastructure after a disruptive event – whether from natural incidents or human intervention. The goal of disaster recovery is business continuity that focuses on system uptimes to limit the effects of disruptive events from causing further damage to your operations.
Not only is disaster recovery significant, but it’s now a necessity – most especially if you’re relying on your IT infrastructure for most of your operations. Because downtime – no matter how big or small – can cause extensive damage to your business if not recovered correctly and promptly. Only those with a well-built cloud-based disaster recovery plan can minimise their effects due to IT disruptions, improve their recovery time, and resume operations effectively.
While many have long relied on traditional disaster recovery methods, such as making physical data backups, cloud disaster recovery (Cloud DR) emerged as a more efficient and reliable solution. It leverages the power of the cloud by securely storing crucial data off-site (on a data centre), allowing swift restoration in the event of a cyber incident.
Does your cloud need disaster recovery?
Disasters can strike at any time, and when they do, the consequences can be catastrophic for businesses. Many have migrated their operations to the cloud, but very few understand the importance of a well-defined disaster recovery plan. Because even with the most advanced technology and infrastructure, no one is immune to system failures or natural disasters. Even the cloud.
Cloud disaster recovery or Cloud DR creates backups of your data, apps, and other resources inside a cloud storage that’s kept safe off-site. The purpose of this setup is to ensure backup data is kept far away (literally and figuratively) from disasters that might happen on-premises. So when disasters do happen, you can restore your operations the way it was before the disaster.
Cloud has a different approach to traditional disaster recovery methods but has the same goals. Traditional disaster recovery focuses on local and on-site backups that are in many cases manual. DR involves creating backups of virtual servers and applications to recover data remotely when disruptions strike. Without this level of preparedness, you risk prolonged downtime, substantial financial losses, and irreversible reputation damage.
Managed Service Providers like Office Solutions IT offer various levels of cloud disaster recovery services as a part of your service agreement. If you have an internal IT team, you can opt for a third-party backup solution for cloud environments to ensure all-around protection against unforeseen circumstances.
Five reasons why you need cloud DR
Cloud disaster recovery plans bring substantial gains, such as:
Increased data protection
Downtime affects your operations and data if you don’t have the appropriate disaster recovery strategy. With cloud DR platforms, you'll gain an enhanced data protection plan which will be readily available in case of a disaster.
A cloud-based disaster recovery solution can also help you improve your recovery time to strengthen your cyber defences to get you back up and running after a disaster.
Scalability & flexibility
Your IT environment depends on your overall business goals and requirements. The same goes for cloud backup and disaster recovery. What’s so great about it is you can only pay for what you use - no more, no less. Your service agreements depend on your current needs and can be scaled up or down, which is an ultimately cheaper option than getting an overcompensating one that’s more expensive with inessential functionalities.
Faster recovery time
When utilising cloud computing solutions, you can do anything remotely from any location. That includes restoring data and systems.
The best advantage cloud DR offers is its ability to provide faster recovery time. Compared to traditional solutions where you have to invest in costly equipment, and in many cases make do with manual backups which is prone to human error. But with disaster recovery via cloud, you eliminate all three by storing data on remote servers, accessible from anywhere at any time, especially during emergencies where you need to expedite data restoration processes.
Cost-effectiveness
DR solutions have cost-effective benefits, but cloud-based disaster recovery can provide more. Unlike the traditional approach wherein you have to put significant investments in equipment, infrastructure, and skilled IT personnel, you use the resources of a Managed Service Provider and pay only for the services you use, making it a more affordable and effortless option.
This option ensures that you’re not wasting money on idle resources and allocate IT budgets to on-demand resources where you can quickly scale up or down depending on business needs.
Testing capabilities
Testing your disaster recovery plan is crucial to ensuring its effectiveness when needed most. With cloud-based disaster recovery, you can regularly and seamlessly test the effectiveness of your backup systems.
Cloud-based solutions simplify testing by replicating productive environments and creating simulations of real-life scenarios without impacting ongoing operations or requiring additional investments. This way, you can identify vulnerabilities or bottlenecks in your systems before they turn into disasters.
Are you in need of cloud DR services?
As more businesses switch to the cloud to improve their operations tenfold, it also calls for cloud disaster recovery services to protect your most essential asset – your data. With benefits such as increased protection, scalability, flexibility, cost-effectiveness, and testability, you are protecting yourself in the best way possible, as it ensures business continuity.
One of the advantages of cloud DR is its inherent scalability incomparable to traditional methods. Although conventional disaster recovery is still handy today, it can’t nimbly scale its resources on demand without investing a hefty chunk on hardware and software assets.
The key to business continuity is persistent exploration of new technologies. Welcoming new perspectives like cloud computing will undoubtedly bring advantages in today’s rapidly growing tech landscape.
Want to explore and embrace the cloud with one of the most trusted service providers in Australia?
Contact us, and our IT experts will help you prepare to prevent and mitigate cyber-related disasters.
