Trends such as social media, mobility and cloud computing has not only resulted in exponential growth in data but also created user expectations for data and applications to be available and accessible 24/7. Therefore, data center failures can have disastrous consequences for companies.
Martijn Blanken, managing director ofTelstra Global, in response to Asia Cloud Forum's email, explains how enterprises can leverage on cloud computing in their disaster recovery (DR) and business continuity (BC) strategies to minimize downtime and prevent unwarranted consequences for businesses.
ACF: How has cloud computing benefited or challenged the DR plans of enterprises?
Martijn: Last year, an IDC study revealed that less than a third of businesses in Asia Pacific have the capacity to recover more than 50% of their data and applications in real-time in the event of a disaster.
While dedicated primary DR sites, built on private infrastructure that are owned by respective corporations, are still the norm today, we are observing some businesses employing scalable, cloud-based DR solutions to complement their primary infrastructure. This results in one fully functioning, dedicated platform running alongside an on-demand solution.
Telcos can provide low latency links that allow the customer's environment to be synched and backed up in near real time between the two sites. This improves resilience and ensures very little data is unrecoverable in the event of a disaster.
It is also important to remember that cloud services are not altogether infallible. Relying exclusively on third-party, public cloud-based DR solutions as a backup can be risky in comparison to private, dedicated cloud or more traditional approaches such as hosting in-house or using a colocation provider.
A dynamic DR solution, one that leverages on both physical, company-owned infrastructure and cloud-based solutions, is imperative as the business landscape becomes increasingly digitized.