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4 cloud disaster recovery best practices
The cloud is a widely implemented technology for flexible and reliable disaster recovery. Businesses can optimize a cloud DR strategy with these four best practices.
Disaster recovery is a critical process for any forward-thinking business, and the cloud adds a whole new dimension to DR planning. Organizations implementing cloud disaster recovery can ease the process along with some key best practices.
Today, cloud-based disaster recovery has widespread adoption and broad support by vendors, as well as a wide range of deployment and management options. This makes it a flexible and readily available option for most organizations.
To get the most out of cloud-based DR, there are several helpful steps organizations can implement. Cloud disaster recovery best practices include defining requirements, identifying the right providers, and implementing and testing cloud DR tools as part of the overall DR plan. Considering all options, such as a hybrid strategy, is another way organizations can ensure they're making the right cloud choices.
Here are four cloud disaster recovery best practices that organizations should consider when shifting to a cloud-based strategy.
1. Define requirements
To get the most out of a cloud disaster recovery strategy, organizations should begin by defining and understanding their disaster recovery status and requirements. To do this, DR teams can work with upper management to perform the following tasks:
- Conduct and use a business impact analysis to recognize risks and identify where cloud technologies can help.
- Define recovery point objectives and recovery time objectives across the organization's business functions.
- Review and understand the company's existing disaster recovery plan and infrastructure.
- Decide whether replication, backups or failover best serves the organization's needs. Remember that these might be defined differently for specific services and data. For example, end-user data might require backups while web services might require failover options.
Understanding these starting points lets those involved with DR planning use this information to decide if and how the cloud can help.
2. Identify suitable vendors
Researching cloud DR providers can be a lengthy process, but the effort is worth the result. Identifying and selecting a cloud vendor that meets the organization's disaster recovery needs is a critical step. For organizations looking to make changes to an existing strategy, the vendor exploration stage is the perfect time for IT and DR teams to review and rethink an established DR plan.
Research multiple cloud service providers to understand and compare their offerings. It might be useful to ask service provider teams to match their products to business needs. Technical sales teams often help with this phase.
DR teams should also use this time to investigate and determine the organization's physical site requirements. An existing on-premises setup might integrate multiple recovery sites into its design. A single cloud technology is one way to consolidate those locations.
If the organization requires cloud disaster recovery resources in various regions, prioritize the cloud service providers offering DR choices in those areas.
Understand the vendor's service monitoring options. Since many organizations select a hybrid on-premises/cloud DR option, the monitoring must support that design.
Pricing is a key component of finding a compatible vendor. Cloud DR pricing varies between subscription models and flat rates, with specific services at different rates. Ensure that replication and storage space costs reflect the business's disaster recovery objectives.
3. Implement and test
Migrating some or all of an organization's DR services to the cloud is a big step. A move to cloud DR is a major technology deployment that fundamentally changes the organization's structure. Testing is the best way to ensure that new tools within the plan work correctly.
Regular reviews of a DR plan help organizations stay on top of new potential threats and vulnerabilities. DR teams can run tabletop exercises to do a run-through of the recovery plan without an actual crisis taking place. Consider scheduling organization-wide tests annually, but automating periodic smaller-scale tests of replication, backups and failovers.
Cloud resources can get out of control if not managed well and reviewed frequently by the organization.
4. Don't forget on-premises DR
Most business decision-makers are past the honeymoon period when it comes to cloud services. They recognize that the cloud isn't the fix for every problem and is not necessarily cheaper. While cloud DR services offer many benefits, on-premises or hybrid designs are sometimes the best overall choice.
Organizations must recognize that cloud-based DR is not always the best option. In recent years some organizations have even brought specific aspects of their disaster recovery plans back on premises. Cloud repatriation is the process of moving data and operations off the cloud and back on site. It is a rising trend among businesses today as they find that many situations call for local recovery options or both on-site and off-site strategies.
In many cases, cloud deployments offer increased flexibility and scalability, but they don't always match requirements. Organizations might later choose to bring DR plans back on premises to address security, compliance, costs and availability needs. Be mindful of this when making the decision to move to cloud disaster recovery.
Damon Garn owns Cogspinner Coaction and provides freelance IT writing and editing services. He has written multiple CompTIA study guides, including the Linux+, Cloud Essentials+ and Server+ guides, and contributes extensively to TechTarget Editorial and CompTIA Blogs.
