It’s increasingly common for companies in all sectors to use the cloud to store their data. The cloud provides scalability, security and flexibility that was often inaccessible to businesses only a few years ago. But just like any other technology, it has its limits.
What happens if a severe thunderstorm knocks out power to a data center or if an employee accidentally deletes critical files? These are the types of scenarios that, however unlikely, can still happen and cause significant disruptions to a company if they’re not prepared.
That’s where cloud disaster recovery comes in. In this article, we’ll discuss why cloud disaster recovery is critical for businesses and the different strategies you can implement to ensure your data is always safe and accessible.
What Is Cloud Disaster Recovery?
Cloud disaster recovery (CDR) is a strategy that helps businesses keep their data safe in the event of an unforeseen disaster. This can be anything from a natural disaster like a flood or earthquake to a man-made disaster like a power outage, fire or cyberattack.
There are many different cloud disaster recovery strategies that businesses can implement, but the most important thing is to have a plan in place so that you know what to do if and when something goes wrong.
One Company’s Story of Cloud Impact: OVHCloud
Before providing strategies, we wanted to give you a real-life example of a cloud disaster that impacted multiple businesses, big and small.
In 2021, OVHCloud, one of the world’s largest cloud service providers, suffered a catastrophic fire at one of its data centers in Strasbourg, France. The fire destroyed the facility, causing widespread damage and leaving many businesses without access to their critical data.
In the aftermath of the fire, it quickly became apparent that OVHCloud did not have a solid cloud disaster recovery plan. As a result, many businesses were left scrambling to find alternative solutions for their data storage and backup needs.
The moral of the story is that even the biggest and most well-known companies can be caught off guard by a disaster. This is why it’s so important for businesses of all sizes to have a cloud disaster recovery plan.
Now that we’ve seen the importance of cloud disaster recovery, let’s look at strategies you can implement to keep your data safe.
Cloud Disaster Recovery Strategies
When discussing cloud disaster recovery strategies, many options are available, but not all of them will be right for every business. The key is to find the strategy or combination of strategies that work best for you and your company.
Here are some of the most common cloud disaster recovery strategies:
1. Know Your Infrastructure
The first step in any cloud disaster recovery strategy is to understand your current infrastructure and what assets and data you have. Your assets can include everything from physical servers and hard drives to cloud-based applications and data.
Do the homework necessary to understand what you have and where it’s located. For example, take inventory of all of your assets and determine which ones are critical to your business operations.
Once you know what you have, you can start to develop a plan for how to protect it. Yes, this may take some time, but it’s an essential step in protecting your data.
2. Conduct a Business Analysis
Data breaches within the cloud can come in many different forms. From unexpected data loss to malicious cyberattacks, it’s important to understand the different ways your data could be compromised. This is where conducting a business impact analysis comes in.
A business impact analysis (BIA) is a process that focuses on identifying and evaluating the potential risks to your business. Rather than focusing on the causes of the breakdown, a BIA focuses on the potential impact of the disruption. The impact can include things like loss of income, damage to reputation and compliance issues.
By conducting a BIA, you can better understand the risks your business faces and what steps to take to protect against them. For example, using endpoint security vendors can help protect your data by preventing attacks on endpoints on or off the network.
3. Draft a Disaster Recovery Plan Based on RPO and RTO
Once you’ve conducted a BIA and clearly understand the risks your business faces, you can start to draft a disaster recovery plan, specifically around the recovery point objective (RPO) and recovery time objective (RTO).
Your RPO measures how much data is lost during a disruption, while your RTO measures how long it takes to recover from it. By understanding these two factors, you can start putting together a plan that meets the specific needs of your business.
It’s important to note that your RPO and RTO will likely differ based on the type of data you’re working with. For example, if you’re working with data that can be easily recreated, your RPO may be relatively low. However, if you’re working with mission-critical data that can’t be easily replaced, your RPO will be much higher. The same is true for RTO.
Regardless, you want to ensure that your disaster recovery plan is based on your specific RPO and RTO so you can recover from a disruption promptly and with minimal data losses.
4. Have a Strong Cloud Backup Solution
No matter what cloud disaster recovery strategy you implement, it’s essential to have a strong backup solution in place. It will ensure that you can quickly pivot to a different strategy and dodge the hefty price tag that often comes with data loss and encrypted files when there’s no backup.
There are several different backup solutions available, so you must find one that meets the specific needs of your business based on the type of data you have and how often it changes.
5. Test Out Your Disaster Recovery Plan Regularly
Once you have your disaster recovery plan in place, it’s important to test it out regularly. Testing will ensure that your plan works as intended and that you can recover from a disruption quickly. Things to test for include data backups, file restores and application availability.
You should also involve your entire team in the testing process so everyone knows what to do in the event of a disruption. Look for collaboration software that comes with important tools such as chat, video conferencing and task management so your team can easily communicate and work together, even when they’re not in the same place.
Final Thoughts
There you have it! These five cloud disaster recovery strategies can protect your business from data loss and keep your operations running smoothly. We suggest starting this process as soon as possible so you can be well-prepared for whatever comes your way.
