Disaster Recovery Journal

In today's fast-paced society, companies of all sizes need affordable ways to deliver quality IT services reliably and continuously.  One of the key benefits of cloud computing, one that is also often overlooked, is how cloud computing can help ensure business continuity, as well as speedy disaster recovery.  Cloud hosting offers a low-cost disaster recovery and business continuity solution for small to midsize businesses and a more cost-effective DR alternative to larger, cost-conscious corporations.

With the cloud as your disaster recovery solution, you can use your in-house systems to run your core business and work with a cloud hosting provider for your business continuity and disaster protection.  With cloud hosting, your data and software are replicated automatically in the cloud, creating increased redundancy.  You don't have to buy extra hardware or software to mirror your data center environment.  Instead, cloud servers can be easily partitioned to create multiple environments in the cloud, and these cloud servers can be spun up and configured in a matter of minutes.  In addition, with cloud computing and cloud storage, you only pay for the resources you use, so the cost is minimal.

A private cloud is infrastructure operated solely for a single organization, whether managed internally or by a third-party and hosted internally or externally.  Put simply, it is a layer of cloud applications running on private, dedicated hardware.  By addressing any special privacy and/or security concerns, private clouds offer all the benefits of cloud technologies to your business, along with an infrastructure dedicated entirely to your use.

If desired, private cloud services offer the ability to host applications on your company’s own infrastructure, thus providing more control for enterprises that require it.  Since many companies may have compliance or regulatory issues preventing them from jumping into public cloud, the cloud service tiers are replicated within a private cloud environment, behind the firewall, and maintained within the parameters of the host organization, allowing them to keep their existing infrastructure if desired.

According to a survey performed earlier this year by CIO.com, 54% of all IT security professionals cite cloud computing security as their top priority.  Another 32% cite security as a middle priority for them.  However, 85% of IT professionals are confident in their cloud provider’s ability to provide a secure environment for their data. 

Security has always been a concern when sensitive data is involved and this concern is heightened when it comes to cloud services outside of the corporate wall because no longer is it under the company’s direct supervision.  It is human nature to be afraid of the unknown, but the risks of cloud computing come with a plethora of benefits as well.  For example, the cloud offers greater flexibility, scalability, and agility, allowing IT staff to complete tasks in hours rather than weeks or months.

In the months following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, businesses in southern Louisiana tried to get back to business as usual, but some of these businesses were gone for good.  Financial records, customer information, investor reports, and other electronic data was completely lost if it was stored locally on hard drives or external flash drives.  An important and very costly lesson was learned that year regarding the importance of data backup in the cloud. 

Fortunately, this time around many companies did rely on the cloud as a data backup/disaster recovery solution.  And, because of this, they were able to continue working off of Smartphones and laptops without a break in operations when Hurricane Sandy hit their offices.  With time, companies in the Northeast that were affected by Hurricane Sandy will start to pick up the pieces and get back on their feet.

As Hurricane Sandy headed towards Manhattan earlier this week, data centers across New York tested their emergency systems and prepared for the hit.  However, for one ISP, this was simply not enough to prevent this freak storm from affecting their data center in lower Manhattan. 

Hurricane Sandy flooded the entire basement of Datagram’s data center on Monday, requiring it to be shut down to avoid infrastructure damage.  Luckily, many of Datagram’s clients already had backup and disaster recovery services with the company’s secondary location in Connecticut and were able to remain up during the storm because of the failover protection provided to them.  That's the good thing about cloud hosting - your data is never in just one location. One data center could undergo failure and your company data will remain completely safe. 

Sometimes after you migrate your business data and applications to the cloud via cloud servers, it is easy to forget that data security is something that should be consistently monitored.  There are a few things to consider after your company’s migration to the cloud to ensure your data stays safe at all times. 

It is clear to see why businesses put so much emphasis on backing up their data – they need their data to be secure so that their customers can rely on them.  Therefore, an effective disaster recovery plan is essential for every business that relies on stored data.  Furthermore, a successful disaster recovery solution requires additional resources identical to those used during daily operations.  

While there is a wide selection of disaster recovery solutions, cloud hosting provides the most flexibility and ease of use, while remaining cost-effective.  As opposed to purchasing two physical servers (one as your day-to-day server and the other as your backup), cloud servers provide the benefit of being able to easily create multiple servers in the cloud without needing to lease/own physical servers. 

In 1996, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was enacted to help address concerns regarding health care data security and privacy.  As part of the administrative safeguards of this act, health care facilities are responsible for backing up their data and having a disaster recovery plan in place for responding to emergencies. 

In general, health care facilities are responsible for maintaining the availability, integrity, and confidentiality of their patients’ Protected Health Information (PHI).  If a patient arrives in the Emergency Room in the middle of the night, the physician needs to be able to access the patient’s electronic health records quickly so that they can address their needs effectively. 

It is extremely important for businesses to have a Disaster Recovery (DR) plan in place for situations where downtime or data loss may affect the business’ ability to continue operating smoothly and effectively.  To protect your data, it is essential that you know what you’ve got, understand what’s at risk, and then create a Disaster Recovery plan to keep risk at a minimum.

Disaster Recovery ties directly into business continuity because with so many businesses relying on their websites and/or the Internet in general, the loss of data could greatly affect their revenue.  The reality is that if your information system is taken down due to a flood, malware, hack attack, etc., you have both a business continuity and disaster recovery issue on your hands.