Disaster Recovery Journal

For both small- and large-scale businesses, there appears to be a growing trend: executives are adopting cloud computing into their everyday activities with little to no aid from their in‐house IT departments.  In fact, the role of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) is changing at a rapid pace due to the quick evolution of cloud computing and cloud hosting. 

Since the introduction of the computer, IT departments have been tasked with fixing various infrastructure issues regarding storage, email and accessibility.  As cloud technology evolves, it would appear that these positions are also evolving; the use of applications such as Dropbox and Google Apps have virtually eliminated these issues, allowing IT employees to work on more critical problems.

The word “downtime” is one that the customer of any hosting provider dreads to hear. It is used to explain the common occurrence in which a server or website hosted on that server is busy or unavailable as a result of scheduled maintenance or even a system failure. Any time a server is down, all the information you have stored on the server—whether it is an application, a website, or files—will also be down. 

When it comes to cloud computing, expectations are high for 2013. Businesses of all sizes—from garage-based startups to multinational corporations—are putting their resources into utilizing cloud computing technologies and services to help them deliver products and services, while reducing overhead operating costs. 

Nearly 50% of all enterprises in North America and Europe are predicted to set aside budgets for cloud investments this year. Additionally, 50% of software development companies are planning to deploy applications in the cloud. According to a research report by 451 Market Monitor, the cloud computing marketplace will reach $16.7 billion in revenue this year, compared to a revenue of $8.7 billion in 2010. 

The term “cloud computing” refers to any activity or service that involves the “cloud.” No—not a literal cloud! This metaphorical cloud is a virtual system that is accessible online, where users can perform a wide variety of IT tasks. Cloud hosting is just one of the many utilizations of this technology. 

Cloud hosting allows a website to no longer be limited to a single server, as previously seen with dedicated and VPS hosting. A cloud-hosted website will have access to multiple cloud servers. One of the greatest benefits of cloud hosting is the virtually unlimited processing power, as users can always scale up if necessary. 

While it is impossible to avoid disasters that are out of your control, the affect of such disasters can be minimized with a disaster recovery plan.  Disaster recovery plans are essential for businesses that value resiliency and that understand the importance of spending money now to protect against the threat of a potential disaster in the future.  You never know when disaster may strike and it may happen at a very inconvenient time.

One way to ensure that your disaster recovery plan is comprehensive and flexible is to invest in colocation hosting.  While colocation hosting may seem like a more expensive alternative to running your own servers in- house, you are actually getting more value for your money if you look at it from a disaster recovery standpoint.  But, what are the benefits of colocation hosting for disaster recovery and why might you choose this solution for your business?

Lately, the cloud has emerged as a popular solution for data backup for small to medium sized businesses.  Data backup has always been a popular subject for the SMB market and with the recent trend in data growth, cloud-based backup solutions, like cloud server hosting, are here to stay.  Backing up your data to the cloud does however create a few challenges that need to be considered.

First of all, certain data policies require specific protection regarding where data can be stored and transmitted.  Investigate the policies specific to your data to make sure that outsourcing to a cloud provider is not outside of data regulations.  For example, health care facilities are responsible for maintaining the availability, integrity, and confidentiality of their patients’ Protected Health Information (PHI), as they must ensure it meets HIPAA compliance.  Also, consider the data policies, especially the security practices, of the cloud provider to determine if a public or private cloud solution best fits the needs of your data.

In an article published last week, Forbes predicted a substantial shift to the cloud by corporate IT in 2013, saying “whether it is public, private or personal clouds, we will undoubtedly look back on 2013 as the year that cloud computing became an integral part of IT.”  With the rise in cloud adoption predicted for the coming year, it is imperative that IT managers make a conscious effort to become better educated on cloud best practices, data security, trends in cloud utilization, and new cloud-enabled technologies so that they can help their businesses leverage all the appropriate benefits of the cloud.

Forbes predicts that soon, enterprises will no longer think of themselves as strictly 9 to 5 businesses, but rather embrace the notion of being a 24/7 entity because, thanks to cloud computing, not everyone must be chained to his or her desk to get work done.  Cloud computing allows employees to access data via any device connected to the Internet and in turn, enables them to complete work, manage projects, communicate with clients, share files, and more without needing to be physically present at the office. 

Most cloud applications are built with APIs, which perform key tasks in helping the application operate effectively.   Cloud APIs can modify the resources available to operate the application, provide an interface that enables a specific capability, and offer methods to interface and extend the application on the Internet.  Administrators can now integrate applications and other workloads into the cloud using these APIs.

The Atlantic.Net cloud API is a RESTful query interface designed to allow users to programmatically manage Atlantic.Net cloud servers.  A RESTful API is a web service implemented using HTTP and the principles of REST (uniform interface, stateless, client-server, cacheable, layered system, and code on demand).  REST is focused on accessing named resources through a single consistent interface.  For example, in Atlantic.Net’s case, calls are made over the Internet by sending HTTPS requests to cloud API server.

Desktop as a Service is a relatively new concept in the cloud computing industry.  It is similar to Software as a Service, except it’s not only the software, but the entire desktop environment that is provided as a service.  In essence, the desktop is made available as a service to users, regardless of location or environment.  For example, an employee could work on a client database using his desktop computer and then later, access this same information through his laptop, tablet, or smartphone when he leaves the office.

Desktop as a Service, also known as desktop virtualization, lets users sync their data using a client-server model with all of the computing power coming from the cloud server.  The monitor, laptop, phone, or tablet is simply there to display the information resulting from the processing and to relay information to the server regarding simple control signals, such as the click of a mouse or typing on a keyboard.

By far, the biggest concerns surrounding cloud computing are issues regarding security and privacy in the cloud.  The notion of giving up total control of important, sensitive data scares people, as it is no longer “safe” behind the corporate wall.

A lot of people fear that moving their data to be stored offsite will expose it to various risks and security breaches.  However, the cloud is actually a very safe place to store and share data.  Cloud providers offer varying levels of security, but you can also “beef up” your security by various measures such as integrating your encryption key management solution with your cloud management solution.