Data loss is one of the most common problems faced by business, and a growing number of organizations are seeking solutions. As businesses consider their options for data backup and disaster recovery, a growing number are turning to cloud computing solutions. Cloud-based disaster recovery (DR) provides more flexibility, reduced complexities and increased scalability than traditional on-site DR methods. It also eliminates the need to select, install and maintain DR tools and provides continuous access to highly automated and self-driven off-site DR services.

When developing a DR plan, organizations must understand the risks and threats they face from natural, human and technical disasters. This helps them determine what primary hardware and software they need to prioritize during a recovery process, so they can be brought online as soon as possible.

Once a company has identified their priorities, they must decide how they will implement their disaster recovery plan. They may choose to do it themselves, hire a third-party hosting option or use a managed Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) solution. For example, a managed DRaaS provider takes over all the responsibilities of managing the organization’s DR plan. They will also ensure that the primary and secondary systems are synchronized, and they will provide support during recovery processes.

The type of DR solution chosen depends on an organization’s tolerance level, RTO and RPO needs. For example, companies with a higher tolerance level are more likely to prefer a cold DR approach, while those with very tight RTO and RPO requirements will choose a multi-site DR configuration that keeps live copies of backup infrastructure running in multiple cloud availability zones at all times.

Whether an organization chooses a cold, warm or hot DR solution, they should make sure that the DR vendor they choose is located close to them in order to minimize physical distance and latency issues. They should also test their DR plan to ensure that they can recover from different types of failures.

As the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates, the worst-case scenario is not always far-fetched, and companies should be prepared to cope with the unexpected. This is why they need to invest in a robust disaster recovery cloud solution that will enable them to get their workloads back up and running quickly, regardless of what happens.disaster recovery cloud solutions