Cloud-Based Disaster Recovery

Cloud-based disaster recovery can streamline data backup and recovery times, useful for mission-critical applications and data  required to be up and running at all times. Read below for an excerpt about virtualization and disaster recovery from our newest white paper, Disaster Recovery (download full text here):

5.1. Virtualization/Cloud Computing Disaster Recovery

With virtualization, the entire server, including the operating system, applications, patches and data are encapsulated into a single software bundle or server – this virtual server can be copied or backed up to an offsite data center, and spun up on a virtual host in minutes in the event of a disaster.

Since the virtual server is hardware independent, the operating system, applications, patches and data can be safely and accurately transferred from one data center to a second site without reloading each component of the server.

This can reduce recovery times compared to traditional disaster recovery approaches where servers need to be loaded with the OS and application software, as well as patched to the last configuration used in production before the data can be restored.

Virtual machines (VMs) can be mirrored, or running in sync, at a remote site to ensure failover in the event that the original site should fail; ensuring complete data accuracy when recovering and restoring after an interruption.

Another aspect of cloud-based disaster recovery that improves recovery times drastically is full network replication. Replicating the entire network and security configuration between the production and disaster recovery site as configuration changes are made saves you the time and trouble of configuring VLAN, firewall rules and VPNs before the disaster recovery site can go live.

In order to achieve full replication, your cloud-based disaster recovery provider should manage both the production cloud servers and disaster recovery cloud servers at both sites.

For warm site disaster recovery, backups of critical servers can be spun up on a shared or private cloud host platform.

For SAN-to-SAN replication, hot site disaster recovery is more affordable – SAN replication allows not only rapid failover to the secondary site, but also the ability to return to the production site when the disaster is over.

For a case study of a real physical-to-cloud switch scenario from a business enterprise perspective, read section 5.1.4. Cloud Case Study for a detailed comparison of managing physical servers vs. a private cloud environment, including differences in costs, energy use, uptime, performance and development.

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