Shulou(Shulou.com)06/02 Report--

As continuous replication adoption and disaster recovery specialization drive more Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) companies to grow and grow, more help is available for those planning disaster recovery for their hybrid computing environments. However, none of these aids will be very effective if disaster recovery objectives are not defined.

Here are 7 best practices for modifying cloud disaster recovery plans:

(1)Regular backup and replication of systems and data

Michael Flavin, director of sales at Saalex IT, a network infrastructure provider, said: "Many companies are not considering the huge risks of cloud computing. One of the ways businesses can protect themselves from cloud outages is by having secure backups of their systems and data so that failover can be implemented. This can be achieved by regularly replicating data to a second backup data center. "

(2)Understand the sequence of restoring systems during downtime

In the old data center era, it was necessary to determine which systems had to be restored first during downtime and which systems were relatively easy to restore later. The easier reason is that all these systems are under the direct control of the enterprise itself.

This is not the case with hybrid computing, where applications and data can move from one cloud platform to another, or between cloud platforms and on-premises data centers. 69% of business leaders believe communication between organizations helps them achieve their vision.

"When customers are communicating with us, the first thing we do is work with them to determine which systems need to be restored first, and then we test to make sure the restoration is really effective. "said Derrin Rummelt, director of cloud computing engineering and R & D at hybrid IT solutions provider US Signal.

Understanding the order of recovery and where different systems and data sets are running and stored is critical to an enterprise. This is because in some cases, it may be necessary to employ another cloud platform or data center to complete the system transaction. Because even if one of these resources is unavailable, the enterprise's disaster recovery is threatened. As applications and data are modified, this becomes more complicated because many organizations introduce additional risks when they are unable to retest new modifications. Disaster recovery is no longer effective.

(3)Test disaster recovery plans regularly

Even if an enterprise's systems and data remain relatively unchanged, there is always a risk that the infrastructure and platforms provided by cloud vendors to users may introduce new changes that impact the performance of users 'own systems and data. The only way to prevent this from happening is to test disaster recovery plans annually with cloud vendors to make sure recovery really works.

Saalex's Flavin said: "A company can use multiple SaaS, PaaS and IaaS cloud platforms in its IT. By regularly testing these systems, and even by replicating them, you can ensure that disaster recovery in each cloud scenario is working properly. "

Can these users really take on this task? "We recently conducted a survey of businesses and 34 percent of respondents said they test disaster recovery plans annually. Amanda Regnerus, executive vice president of products and services at Signal USA, said,"30 percent of respondents said they test disaster recovery plans every six months, and 40 percent said they test disaster recovery plans every two years or more. The disaster recovery status of these companies is somewhat worrying. "

(4)Defining disaster recovery objectives

As continuous replication adoption and disaster recovery specialization drive more Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) companies to grow and grow, more help is available for those planning disaster recovery for their hybrid computing environments. However, none of these aids will be very effective if disaster recovery objectives are not defined.

Steve Blow, technology evangelist at Zerto, which provides virtual replication services, said,"Our recommendation for enterprises is to set a recovery point objective (RPO) of less than 30 seconds and a recovery time objective (RTO) of between a few minutes and an hour for data, depending on the size of their IT environment and the type of workload being run. "

(5)Manage supplier relationships

"In many ways, users haven't managed their relationships with vendors very well. An IT manager at a West Coast company said,"We haven't looked at contracts carefully, we haven't discussed service level agreements (SLAs) with vendors, and we've never tested disaster recovery, even though we know they have data centers all over the country." "

There are many such cases. Unless it is a large enterprise with dedicated contract management staff, the user's overburdened IT staff may struggle to track vendors or spend time maintaining good relationships with vendors, which may help disaster recovery planning and execution.

"One of the things we do with cloud service providers is communicate with them every year. Regular discussions are held with them to identify common strategies and to discuss and resolve problems. Benjamin Baghdadi, chief technology officer of Island Pacific, a SaaS company serving the retail industry, said,"This really helped us establish close partnerships with cloud computing providers. We know they respond quickly in a disaster. "

(6)Choose SaaS vendors who own and operate their own data centers

When users partner with cloud vendors to acquire SaaS solutions, the key point of the Request for Proposal (RFP) should be whether they own and operate their own cloud data center. SaaS operators who own and operate the cloud platforms on which their solutions run are a better choice in disaster recovery scenarios because they should be solely responsible for failures if service outages occur.

(7)manage risk

The final element of adjusting a disaster recovery plan for a hybrid cloud environment is risk management.

When asked how enterprise management assesses the risks of moving into the cloud, one IT professional said,"I think senior management will weigh risk against cost very carefully, but probably lean toward cost savings." "

This claim was confirmed by the results of a 2017 survey, which showed that two-thirds of companies adopted cloud computing primarily because of cost savings.

This highlights why a cloud computing strategy must also include good communication with enterprise management and organizational boards, namely that moving business to the cloud also introduces new risks for users that they cannot gain full control over, especially when disaster recovery is involved.

If management understands these risks and has realigned disaster recovery plans accordingly, they should feel more secure about their cloud computing strategy.

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