What is Cloud Disaster Recovery?

In simple words, a Cloud Disaster Recovery (CDR) is a service that enables our backup and recovery of the remote machines when a disaster strikes on a cloud base platform. When disaster strikes, CDR provides the defined Restore Point Objective (RPO) and Recover Time Objective (RTO).

A cloud base disaster recovery system enables an organization to scale up the entire cloud disaster recovery plan from some to many, fall back on the DR infrastructure and roll back again once the mail infra is up. The whole activity can be automated or can be done manually and it depends on who is the cloud service provider.

How to Plan an Effective Cloud Disaster Recovery Strategy?

Disaster recovery is just an another very important task and it can be taken care of in a few hours or minutes.

For any organisation a Cloud Disaster Recovery (CDR) offers many advantages

1. Save time and capital.

2. Multiple data backup locations.

3. Easily maintained.

4. Scalability options.

Step 1: Analyze the current infra & outline the risks if any

It is important to analyze the infrastructure and the data possessed by the organization.

It should be accessed where all the data is stored, how the data is stored, and how much the data is worth. Once the analysis are done, we need to evaluate the risks involved when the disasters like natural, technical or mechanical, data theft, power outrages, etc. strikes.

Step 2: Conduct a business impact analysis.

Conducting business impact analysis will give us an understanding of the limitations of the business operations once disaster strikes.

Following two parameters will help us to access this factor. I have explained in details about the below two factors in my other blog.

a. Recovery Time Objective (RTO.

b. Recovery Point Objective (RPO).

Step 3: Creating a DR plan based on RPO and RTO.

Once we determine the RPO and RTO, we need to design a solution to meet are expectations from the DR.

We can choose from the below DR approaches

1. Backup and Restore.

2. Pilot Light Approach.

3. Warm Standby.

4. Full Replication in the Cloud.

5. Multi-Cloud Option.

I will be writing on each of the approaches in my next article.

Step 4: Choose the Right Cloud Partner

Once we have opted the approach we need to choose the right cloud partner who will help us in the deployment.

To access the right cloud partner we must consider the following factors.

1. Reliability.

2. Speed of Recovery.

3. Usability.

4. Simplicity in setting up recovery.

5. Scalability.

6. Security compliance.

Step 5: Build/Design Cloud DR Infrastructure.

By consulting a cloud DR partner, we can work with him to design and setup our DR infrastructure.

We can consider following aspects

1. Which infrastructure components we require?

2. How we will backup/copy the data to the cloud?

3. How we will be define user authentication and access management?

4. Which security and compliance we need to set up the DR?

5. Which steps we will take or implement to minimize the disaster?

Step 6: Testing of DR.

An organisation will always witness in terms of people, processes, and technologies. It is best if we put our DR on test throughout these changes and ensure we are prepared for an emergency.

The bigger the DR, the more important to test it. It is recommended to run the DR test every quarter.

Meanwhile, we should monitor and analyze our backup activities on daily basis.

If you need my assistance, share us the details @techsurinder and I will get back to you.