Disaster Recovery In The Cloud: Key Considerations

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Live at Interop ITX

When the notion of cloud computing first arose, there was a lot of talk about how wonderful it was to have an affordable, manageable “secondary” data center available in the case of an emergency. Enterprises are no strangers to the need to have a secondary, or backup, data center as a means to address potential disasters. Many have them, but in the wake of cloud, some have migrated from owning their own to renting one in the cloud. For those who were just growing to the point they needed such a disaster recovery option, many turned immediately to cloud because why would you invest in a physical data center when there was a veritable smorgasbord of options available in the form of cloud computing?

Like traditional DR architectures, employing a cloud-based secondary site requires more than just replicating your data center. Data changes constantly and vigilance is required to ensure that those changes are replicated in a timely fashion to wherever your secondary site might be. The form that takes depends on what your plan of record may be in the event of a disaster, and indeed, what you consider a disaster.

Because it’s always live and available, the cloud offers the ability to support multiple levels of disaster recovery. From a single application to the entire data center, there are myriad ways in which you can ensure the availability of those applications and data critical to the business.

[Read the rest of the discussion by Lori MacVittie of the disaster recovery via the cloud on Network Computing, and attend her presentation Operationalizing IT With Automation and APIs at Interop ITX in Las Vegas in May.]