Have you seen the recent video of the man being stalked by a cougar? It’s no laughing matter to be stalked by a 100+ lb cat, especially in the wilderness on your own! If you were the runner, would you have picked up a rock and faced the feline, ran away and hoped to outrun the ferocious hunter, or just frozen and cowered in fear? With the dumpster fire that is 2020, IT leaders are facing the same questions about their disaster recovery plans. Traditional data center plans aren’t able to overcome some of the challenges we face today which brings cloud-based disaster recovery to the forefront of the conversation. Let’s review the cloud DR drivers that are forcing IT leaders to face the feline head-on in 2020.
Pandemic/lockdowns
With a good percentage of the population having been affected by physical lockdowns, there have been issues with accessing offices and data centers. If a DR event occurs, this lack of accessibility could prove disastrous. Therefore, having a cloud DR solution which you can kick off immediately, from anywhere/anytime, will be the difference to prevent a severe, long-term outage.
Lockdown restrictions have also forced many companies to go into defensive mode and required major cost cutting/cash saving measures. This caused many to quickly review ways to better use current resources, divest from others, and better leverage their DR strategies.
Learn more about how IT can reduce costs by up to 55% with cloud backup and cloud DR.
Social upheaval
2020 has shown us that there is no shortage of social issues to be addressed globally. People are forcing change, therefore IT leaders need to be prepared for a variety of scenarios. Unsafe or limited access to physical data center locations (as discussed above), power outages, blocked highways, outdoor demonstrations and additional unforeseen circumstances can challenge employee access to physical and virtual offices. Being ready with data sets accessible to users in the cloud for restore, failover and effective business continuity ensures minimal disruption to business’ operational availability.
Supply chain strain
In order to build out data centers, upgrade physical systems or perform routine maintenance, IT teams need people and supplies. Since the beginning of the year, we have witnessed the lack of resources available due to the strain on the supply chain, from food items to paper towels. The same strain has transpired for IT supplies: halted orders, disrupted shipping and supplies aren’t as quick to ship. Even Amazon Prime shipping has slowed!
How can an organization build out an effective DR strategy if they don’t have the physical resources? Cloud DR is the answer! DRaaS eliminates the headaches associated with supply chain issues while enabling 1-click DR orchestration, endless on-demand scalability, and hands-free maintenance.
Unfortunately 2020 isn’t over. When planning for DR and business continuity, organizations must consider what could happen during the remainder of 2020 and beyond. Cloud Disaster Recovery tackles many of the challenges we have discussed, especially when implementing a multi cloud strategy. With Murphy’s Law staring us in the face, DR planning must be taken to the extreme. What might happen probably will, so let’s plan for it!