Disaster Recovery Strategies Need to Account for Risk

February 18, 2019

If you’ve taken on more and more cloud-based solutions during the last few years, you might want to take a look at your disaster recovery strategy, because it’s highly possible that what was designed for your in-house processes isn’t providing the safety you require in the cloud.
For example, if you read your contract with your cloud partner, it’s likely you’ll find clauses that do not make the partner liable for service or data recovery in their service level agreements. While many partners will offer various protections to keep your data safe, the responsibility for disaster recovery falls almost solely on your organization.
Another piece of the puzzle you have to consider is that when you use software as a service (SaaS) partners, they often rely on third-party cloud providers, which adds another layer of concern and must be accounted for in your strategy.
Preparing for Outages
It’s not a common occurrence by any stretch, but there have been times when the third-party cloud provider experiences an outage and the SaaS partner has to deal directly with the client to get through the problem, which is another contingency for which to plan.
If you’re searching for some solid tips to bolster your strategy, consider the following:

  • Bring in the Best Technology: Fortunately, you’ve got tools that can assist you in your disaster recovery goals. There are actually disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) firms specializing in providing continuous replication technology.
  • Be Familiar with Your System: When you experience an outage, it’s highly beneficial to know what systems need to be restored and in what order. The problem for most organizations is they don’t track what applications are sitting on which cloud.
  • Fire Drills: With regular testing, your staff will know exactly what their role is in the event of an outage. With practice, they’ll be able to jump into action and take care of the problem swiftly, which is a crucial component in disaster recovery success stories.
  • Account for Risk: Risk management should be a priority. Don’t get lured into a cost-saving solution that presents more risk than you can possibly manage. Of course, going with cloud solutions has the major draw of being advantageous for the cost cautious, but carefully weigh cloud computing strategies and how they can fit into your disaster recovery strategy.

At Clarksys, we can provide you with the disaster recovery solutions that will make a difference. We take care of the problems you face today while scaling for tomorrow. As your needs shift, we’ll be there to help you stay on top of the technology and services that will continue to make you competitive. Contact us today and let’s talk about your needs.

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