Disaster Recovery That Works: Leveraging the Cloud
Digital infrastructure has changed the way businesses operate; in fact, in a recent PwC survey, 78% of business leaders have adopted the cloud in most areas of their business. While this has several benefits, such as increasing productivity, saving costs, and improving customer service, businesses are increasingly vulnerable to disruptions such as:
- Cyber attacks
- Hardware failures
- Human error
- Power outage disruptions
- Software failures
Downtime is expensive, with UK businesses losing £3.7 billion and 50 million hours in 2023 due to internet outages alone. Traditional disaster recovery approaches are often too slow, costly and difficult to maintain.
Cloud disaster recovery is a modern, scalable solution that helps businesses recover faster following an unexpected disruption while also supporting business continuity. In this guide, our experts will explain everything you need to know about cloud disaster recovery, including best practices, benefits, and common mistakes to avoid.
What Is Disaster Recovery in Cloud Computing?
Before we explore disaster recovery, it’s important to understand the cloud’s function. The cloud is a remote platform that allows you to store, access and process data and systems any time and anywhere.
Cloud disaster recovery is the process of restoring business systems and data after an unexpected event. Unlike a simple backup, which could be lost during a power outage or cyber attack, cloud disaster recovery retrieves the replicated data and systems, allowing businesses to continue operations with minimal downtime.
Why Modern Businesses Need Cloud Disaster Recovery
Modern businesses are full of potential, but also risk. As businesses become more dependent on digital systems, the impact of downtime grows, and security becomes essential. From ransomware and server failures to floods and fire, without the right cloud disaster recovery plan, your business could:
- Lose revenue
- Experience reputational damage
- Fail to meet compliance requirements
- Lose customer trust and loyalty
If you already have a business continuity plan in place, integrating cloud disaster recovery will naturally work alongside existing plans to help ensure your business functions are back up and running as soon as possible to avoid these risks.
Now, let’s explore the best practices of cloud disaster recovery.
Cloud Disaster Recovery Best Practices
Understand Your Critical Systems
Firstly, take the time to understand your systems through a business impact analysis; this will allow you to prioritise applications and identify critical workloads, and determine what will need to be hosted and protected on the cloud.
Define Recovery Objectives
Next, define your recovery objectives; different systems will require different targets, such as recovery time objective (RTO) or recovery point objective (RPO).
- RTO: The target timeframe to restore your systems after the incident.
- RPO: The maximum age of the data you’re willing to lose after the incident.
It’s important to get this step right, as it will help you to determine if your cloud disaster recovery plan is effective.
Replicate Data Securely
Choose which cloud platform you’re going to use to host your data and systems on, and ensure it offers encryption, versioning, and immutable backups. This will ensure your information is secure and ready to be restored during a disruptive event.
Test Recovery Regularly
There’s little point in setting up a cloud disaster recovery plan if it doesn’t work or suit your business needs. So, make sure to test the plan through scheduled testing and simulated outages to ensure continuous improvement.
Protect Against Cyber Threats
The cloud is an isolated virtual environment which helps to protect against ransomware and data breaches. However, there are external steps you can take to further protect your data, including multi-factor authentication, endpoint security, and adopting a zero trust framework.
Work with a Trusted IT Partner
Setting up a cloud disaster recovery plan and continuously monitoring and testing it can be a challenge. Partnering with a trusted IT and cyber security consultant will provide expert support, offering ongoing optimisations, faster recovery and compliance.
Benefits of Cloud-Based Disaster Recovery
But why should you adopt a cloud disaster recovery plan? Here are the benefits of implementing this security measure:
- Faster Recovery Times: Having your data and systems replicated on the cloud means that when a disaster does strike, you and your team can still virtually access information to continue operations.
- Lower Infrastructure Costs: With your important data and systems stored on the cloud and protected by your disaster recovery plan, it eliminates the need for physical recovery from a secondary site, saving time and money.
- Scalable Resources: As your business grows, you can tailor your cloud disaster recovery plan to suit your business needs, meaning your data will always be secure.
- Better Compliance: Most cloud systems have compliance features built-in, making it easier to carry out audits and stay compliant.
- Remote Accessibility: By remotely hosting your data on the cloud, your team can access it any time and anywhere, helping to reduce downtime.
- Enhanced Security: With multi-factor authentication, replicated backups, and end-to-end encryption, cloud disaster recovery ensures your data is secure from attacks or human error.
Common Mistakes Businesses Make
To make the most of these benefits, here are some common mistakes businesses make when a disruptive event occurs:
- Assuming backups are enough
- Never testing recovery
- Ignoring ransomware
- Single-site storage
- No documented recovery plan
- Undefined recovery objectives
- Outdated documentation
By following the six cloud disaster recovery best practices, these risks become avoidable.
How Net Consulting Can Help
At Net Consulting, we’ve been helping businesses protect their IT infrastructure for 20 years. As a trusted partner, we provide secure network services and infrastructure (SNSI) to help protect multi-site businesses stay secure and compliant.
An effective strategy combines cloud business continuity and disaster recovery to safeguard both IT systems and business operations. Downtime is inevitable without the correct preparation, and our cloud service can ensure your recovery is faster and more resilient by following best practices.
Get in touch with one of our specialists today to minimise disruption, protect data and recover with confidence.
