In today’s business climate, the threat to business data and digital services is not only very real but escalating. Malicious actors are becoming smarter. Natural disasters are more prevalent. A good disaster recovery plan considers hardware recovery as well as software and data recovery. It assesses how much data a business can afford to lose and how quickly they need their digital infrastructure to be recovered.
Lessons of a pandemic
With the large slice of the global workforce working from home in the last year, cloud and virtual desktop solutions have become the backbone of business.
Disaster hit with the global pandemic. Many businesses were unprepared. The priority was to continue to meet the expectations of the customer. A new way of functioning was required. Policies and procedures needed rewriting. There was a scramble to establish functioning workplace solutions. Physical office spaces and in-person meetings became a thing of the past.
Today, remote workplaces have become business-as-usual. The pandemic happened, and it’s still here. But that doesn’t mean there are no more disasters on the horizon. One lesson businesses can take from the pandemic is they need to be prepared for anything.
Cloud as the new future
Once upon a time, backing up on physical tape was gospel. Disaster recovery of digital infrastructure was a manual, resource-intensive process. Then the cloud came along and now businesses have options. They have more reliability for less hassle. They have faster digital infrastructure recovery.
Cloud infrastructure or cloud computing services allow for business digital infrastructure to be accessed from anywhere. The cloud is managed by an external provider to the business and they manage all the physical infrastructure. This frees up business resources and makes disaster recovery simpler.
Gone are the days where businesses had to make a huge capital investment in on-prem servers. Gone is the in-house IT administrator who is expected to manage any possible disaster. Disasters come in all sorts of different shapes and sizes. Each disaster is unique in its makeup and complexity. It’s unrealistic to expect one person to know it all.
World-class disaster recovery with cloud
Cloud storage provides minimal outlay. Products like Azure cloud services provide worldwide data centers with off-site replication. There is very minimal on-site maintenance required. Data can be stored for up to ninety years. Multiple copies are stored in different locations so businesses don’t have to worry about losing their data or digital infrastructure.
Today, businesses have the luxury of removing much of the headache of disaster recovery from their in-house responsibilities. But they don’t need to choose in-house or cloud. They can choose a bit of both. Businesses can retain control of disaster recovery for certain data and outsource the rest to the cloud.
Managed service providers can help remove the business headache of providing in-house backup and disaster recovery solutions. They provide specialised and certified skillsets that can cater for and manage any possible disaster. Experienced IT staff who have successfully navigated and managed complex disaster recoveries across many types of businesses can provide 24×7 support. Managed service providers invest in the best security. They provide state-of-the-art resources to find vulnerabilities in the digital infrastructure of a business. Their services specialise in keeping data protected and less vulnerable to attack.
A well-thought-out and air-tight disaster and recovery plan created by certified and experienced disaster recovery IT specialists is important. Cloud technology provides ample opportunity to test disaster recovery and provide an air-tight solution. Businesses then have comfort that the proper procedures are in place should the unthinkable happen. A reliable business keeps customers happy and increases the appeal of the business brand.
