The Importance of Disaster Recovery in Cloud Hosting

What is disaster recovery and why is it important?

Disaster recovery refers to a combination of strategies and measures that are taken after an incident such as hardware failures, cyberattacks or natural disasters, but also after damage caused by human error, in order to be operational again as quickly as possible. This plays a particularly important role in the area of cloud hosting, as a failure often affects the central digital structures of several companies, the limited availability of which can lead to high financial losses. Especially if any incidents occur during the business hours of the affected companies. In detail, this means that a good disaster recovery plan in cloud hosting includes the following objectives.

• Minimizing downtimes
  The combination of automated processes and backup solutions should enable all system components to be restored quickly and reliably. In addition, emphasis should be placed on the implementation of early warning systems that enable proactive action to be taken before an emergency occurs.
  
  
• Protection against data loss
  The regularity and multiplication of backups ensures that important data is not lost even in the event of a disaster. At first glance, offsite backups at several locations (possibly even abroad) may seem superfluous, as they are seen as an unnecessary additional cost factor. However, the costs resulting from a total loss of data are often many times higher.
  
  
• Cost efficiency
  Thanks to modern cloud-based disaster recovery solutions and pay-as-you-go models, the cost of implementing a disaster recovery plan is minimized and affordable for businesses of this type. In fact, many cloud hosting providers already offer such solutions as an included service or for a minimal additional charge for all their products.

Beispiele

The following incidents illustrate how important digital backups are and show the relevance of a comprehensive, regularly tested disaster recovery plan. They also show that any company, regardless of its size, can be affected.

• Ransomware paralyzes Swedish data center
  On the night of 19-20.01.2024, a ransomware attack partially paralyzed a Swedish data center of the cloud hosting provider Tietoevry. Customer systems were encrypted, which not only damaged the reputation of the cloud hosting provider, but also led to financial losses for customers. German media also reported on the incident at times, confirming the significance of the event beyond national borders.
  
  
• Fire destroys data center in France
  After a fire in a French data center of the provider OVH, around 1.5 million customers temporarily feared for their data. The affected data center in Strasbourg had burned down completely, another one partially. Adjacent data centers were also shut down for safety reasons. At the time, there were around 12,000 servers in the burnt-down building. These included not only dedicated systems belonging to customers, but also servers that were connected to the private cloud offering of the provider OVH. According to media reports, it was assumed that the official figures of around 15,000 affected customers may have even been exceeded in reality.

Development of an effective disaster recovery plan

IT infrastructure is individual. An effective disaster recovery plan therefore requires a comprehensive analysis of the current situation and must be individually adapted to the requirements of the company and its existing digital solutions. Nevertheless, the following generally applicable key components can be identified, which can be used to develop a customized concept:

• Perform a risk analysis
  Potential technical and business threats and vulnerabilities must be identified in advance and incorporated into the concept, as these factors can have a decisive influence on the measures to be taken.
  
  
• Establish a backup concept
  Sensitive data that is vital to the business should be backed up regularly in different geographical regions. For other data, a backup in the same country or even in the same data center may be sufficient. Companies should therefore make sure they have an overview of their data in advance and use this as the basis for designing an individual backup concept.
  
  
• Weigh up recovery options and goals
  Backups without restore options are pointless. But there are a few things to consider here too. Companies should take another close look at their data and define the recovery time objective (RTO) and the recovery point objective (RPO). These definitions contain provisions on how quickly which amount of data must be recoverable.
  
  
• Test runs and updating
  The IT infrastructure of an economically active company is subject to constant change. It is therefore essential to regularly review and adapt the concepts and technologies for digital security. This ensures that the processes grow securely with the requirements of the business.

Disaster recovery in cloud hosting

Various cloud hosting providers already offer specialized tools and services that can make disaster recovery processes simpler and more effective. The relevance of these functions for individual companies is once again individual. However, they should be considered and, if necessary, included in a purchase decision when switching providers.

• Snapshots
  Snapshots allow data to be restored quickly with a single click. They can often be created during operation and therefore do not affect the availability of the affected services in active operation.
  
  
• Multi-region backups
  Data and services, including backups, can be stored in multiple regions. This enables physical independence from one location and increases protection against external influences such as fires or natural disasters.
  
  
• Automation
  In addition to the option of creating backups manually or programmatically, various cloud platforms also offer an automated component that prevents human error and thus ensures greater security in the data backup process.

Conclusion

A good disaster recovery concept in cloud hosting is not just an option, but almost a must for any company that wants to secure its digital future, because companies that act proactively in this area and invest in comprehensive disaster recovery strategies not only secure their data, but also their own competitiveness. A robust plan is essential, especially at a time when outages can result in ever greater financial and reputational damage. If you own a business or work in IT, make sure you have a plan in place - the future of your business could depend on it!