Cloud computing is providing opportunities for faster disaster recovery processes. These opportunities are causing companies to leap before they they have considered all aspects and objectives of their Disaster Recovery processes.

With cloud computing, the data backup can be accomplished by encapsulating the entire server through virtualization. Then this virtual server can be copied to the off-site location. This seems to be a very attractive alternative to the traditional method of disaster recovery due to its ease and speed. However, there are further considerations that must be considered.

Richard Cocchiara, who is CTO and the Managing Partner of Consulting for IBM’s Business Continuity & Resiliency Services states in an article called Cloud computing causing rethinking of disaster recovery “So in addition doing replication of data to another server, we still recommend backup because you can recover individual files to a point in time.”

There are real life situations that require the ability to “look back in time”. Data backup and recovery strategies must meet company policies regarding regulatory requirements, data breaches, ability to respond to court orders, and more.

Consider that data is not only to be backed up for protection of a catastrophic event, but, it also needs to be restored in different ways for different purposes and meet varying requirements. This requires coordinated strategies and testing. Data Backup strategies must be planned and tested to assure all company requirements regarding data retention and recovery are met.

When the term “cloud” is mentioned, we visualize an “all or nothing” scenario. We think that the data must be replicated to its backup site. We also imagine that the management of the DR processes and the data together must be in the cloud. But, these models are not the only that are possible.

In the case of data backup and recovery, for instance, the data can alternatively remain within the customer’s network and deployed off site at the customer’s choice location. The DR processes can be managed in the cloud. The data does not have to be in the cloud with the data backup administration. These two entities can be distinct.

There are Data Backup/Recovery Managed Service Providers that provide remote management of the Backup process, along with professional Disaster Backup and Recovery consultation. To further discuss the subject of cloud data backup and recovery management, contact Salvus Data Consultants.