Cloud Disaster Recovery

A Disaster Recovery plan includes several key components, two of which are the Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO). These parameters define the acceptable amount of time a business can be offline and the amount of data loss that can be tolerated.

• RTO is the target duration set by an organization for restoring normal operations following an outage or data loss.
• RPO is the target amount of data that an organization can afford to lose. This is measured in time and represents the difference between the time of a failure and the last valid data backup. For example, if the last full data backup was taken 24 hours ago and a failure occurs now, the RPO is 24 hours

When creating a Disaster Recovery plan, different Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs) may be set for various applications used by a company. The more crucial an application is to the business, the stricter the RTO and RPO should be. Conversely, less critical applications will have more relaxed RTOs and RPOs.

To determine the appropriate RTOs and RPOs for an organization, it is important to involve business unit leaders and senior management. Identify which applications and systems drive the business and generate the most revenue, as these are the most important to keep operational and should have low RTOs and RPOs. Once a business impact analysis has been conducted, divide the systems into tiers based on criticality levels, and establish appropriate recovery objectives for each tier.

The stricter the RTO and RPO, the more it will cost to implement them. For instance, running full corporate data backups on a daily basis to achieve a lower RPO will consume more storage and network resources than doing it weekly, which will increase the expenses. To control the costs, first, determine the desired RTO/RPO values based on the criticality tiers and then investigate cost-effective methods to achieve them as part of the disaster recovery plan.

For example:

How frequently should data that is critical to the business be backed up? One option to achieve high availability is to continuously replicate data from primary storage to secondary storage that is always active. However, this setup necessitates high-performance storage systems and maximum network bandwidth, which can be costly. Once full data backups have been done, consider conducting incremental backups, which only backup new or modified data, to minimize backup windows and reduce costs.

Where should backups be stored for convenient and swift access? Keeping backups in the cloud can be more cost-effective than creating and maintaining a secondary IT infrastructure using your own equipment, property, and power. Additionally, data backups can also be stored on-premises in another building or secondary data center. They can also be stored in the primary data center but in a different location or at least a different rack for diversity. However, it’s worth noting that backups stored in this way may not be as effective in case of natural disasters that affect the entire site, city, or region, as compared to storing data copies in geographically diverse locations.

Some on-premises backup solutions utilize virtualized storage clusters that spread databases and file services across multiple nodes, allowing for concurrent backup of multiple workloads. As more capacity is needed, nodes can be added. The bigger the cluster, the more data can be ingested simultaneously, resulting in shorter backup windows. By integrating these systems with public cloud infrastructure services, it becomes possible to create a hybrid cloud environment that offers diversity and data protection.

During a disruption, what additional steps will be necessary to restore systems, and how long will they take? For instance, it might be necessary to replace damaged components, reconfigure software, and test systems before resuming operations. In a cloud environment, hardware is not a concern, but reconfiguring IP addresses and settings may require more effort. Additionally, it’s important to consider whether the disaster recovery plan involves failing over to a secondary set of data or recovering in-place. These are important factors to consider when developing and executing a plan.

The recovery time objective (RTO) is the target period of time for downtime in the event of IT downtime while recovery point objective is the maximum length of time from the last data restoration point.

Having assets stored in the cloud allows for quick recovery times as the data and applications can be easily accessed from any location and device at any time

Storing critical data for a business on the cloud keeps it secure and protected from threats, ensuring continuity of operations.

By storing assets on the cloud, organizations can eliminate the need for physical hardware such as flash drives, hard disks, and servers, resulting in cost savings and reduced space requirements

Having assets stored on the cloud makes implementing recovery plans quicker and more efficient.

The cloud infrastructure can be adjusted to meet the changing needs of a business, allowing for scaling up or down as required

Assess the recovery needs of your business

Create a recovery plan that aligns with the identified needs

Establish a secondary location on the cloud

Begin cloud-based backups of all recovery needs

Conduct Disaster recovery exercises to test the plan and the service’s efficiency

Confirm that the Disaster recovery program complies with relevant regulations