Disaster Recovery Journal, Summer 2010

considering most disasters mean employees won’t have access to their offices or workplaces.

This conceptually means that if your
facilities become inaccessible, as long as
key employees have an Internet connec-
tion they would have access to key applica-
tions and data required to run the business.
Considering that cloud computing systems
are already optimized for Internet deliv-
ery, including leveraging redundant sites
to optimize performance and for their own
DR requirements, moving to cloud com-
puting-based applications should be rela-
tively low risk, depending on the types of
applications you’re running.

Mapping a Path

So, how do you move toward a cloud computing-oriented DR strategy? You start, as with any DR strategies, by understanding the requirements, including the relative cost of risk. This provides the foundation of the cost benefit, and thus the amount of investment that should be made.

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From there you can assess the fit of a cloud computing provider within the DR strategy. In many instances, cloud computing is not a fit due to specialized requirements of the applications, such as core proprietary enterprise software that does not yet support cloud computing. Or, many enterprises deal with data that has special security requirements, such as PII and HIPAA data. Indeed, in many European nations, financial data is not allowed to leave the country. Many cloud computing providers exist outside of borders, or replicate data to data centers out of the country as a part of their operations. In short, you need to understand all compliance issues.

You also need to consider the inherent risks. You need to trust your cloud computing provider to live up to any SLA, as well as consider the fact that many are small VC-backed startups and could be sold at any time, and thus the level of service could change. Your data is being physically mixed together with data from other companies, even though logically they appear as dedicated systems. There are some situations when your data could leave the premises without your permission, such as when servers are seized by law enforcement around evidence related to other tenants on that cloud computing platform, but your data leaves on the servers with the data owned by the suspect company. Again, you need to weigh the risk with the benefits.

As cloud computing matures, there may be more upsides to leveraging providers as a part of your DR strategy, even with all of the downsides considered. Most providers still don’t view DR as a killer app for their platforms because those who leverage cloud computing for DR will not be intensive users. That is, until they are needed to support business continuity.

For now, this is another good option for DR. One that will most likely be attractive to small- to medium-sized businesses, but larger businesses and perhaps the government will join the trend as things move forward.