With more and more organizations moving to the cloud, they have become nimbler and more innovative in how they do business. As a self-service, on-demand environment, the cloud is increasingly important for companies to enable end-to-end digital transformation. In fact, organizations that made no digital transformation changes following COVID-19 saw costs rise by 16.6%, or $750K higher than the global average.

While cloud computing and automation are critical tools for seamless and scalable operations, businesses also need to navigate significant unpredictability, especially regarding data. The global average total cost of a data breach increased by nearly 10%, from USD 3.86 million in 2020 to USD 4.24 million in 2021 . The primary aim, therefore, is to keep critical data on the cloud and on-premise secure and make it easily retrievable in the event of breaches, natural disasters, or other reasons.

With that being said, it’s not too late for you to migrate to the cloud or build a hybrid infrastructure to accelerate digital transformation. Adopting cloud computing or scaling up your existing cloud deployments is as much a business strategy as it is an IT strategy since you’re investing in future-ready infrastructure that supports more complex business processes and drives revenue generation. Hence, it is extremely important to choose the right cloud service and managed services provider who understands your business needs and growth objectives.

Benefits of cloud backup and disaster recovery

The cloud has become the most powerful and affordable platform for business continuity and the preferred infrastructure for fast, sustained digital transformation. For businesses, data is everything. {`It's the lifeblood that drives operations and keeps the wheels turning. So, for data backup and disaster recovery, growing digital enterprises and startups can't`} afford to take any chances. A cloud-based business continuity solution is always a more efficient and less expensive alternative to manual, on-premise backup systems, and traditional disaster recovery methods.

Cloud data backup and recovery enables business continuity by providing reliable and secure backups of your critical business data. An off-site cloud solution can work securely and quickly to get your business back up and running quickly while minimizing damage in the event of a data breach or disaster. Thus, with cloud-based backup and disaster recovery in place, you can rest assured knowing that your data is safe no matter what happens.

While this is just scratching the surface, some of the other notable benefits of backup and disaster recovery are:

Flexible and scalable

Most cloud services are typically available on a pay-as-you-go basis, including backup and recovery solutions, which are a more cost-effective and scalable option than on-premise solutions. This means that even small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) should be able to implement a business continuity solution by choosing only the services they need at that time, and then scale up or down as their requirements change.

Cloud services are also more versatile than on-site alternatives as it allows you to choose what data you want on the cloud and what you want on-premise. For example, you can store only the most vital apps in the cloud, which have a higher level of security, while less critical data and systems can be hosted on in-house servers.

You can also tailor a cloud platform’s architecture to your specific needs. It depends on the nature of your business and your use cases. For instance, do you require the high-level security and control that a private cloud deployment provides? Or are you looking for the cost-effectiveness and simplicity of a public cloud? Whatever your business needs, the cloud helps you to choose the most cost-effective and flexible solution for it.

Faster recovery

Since the cloud enables storing data at several locations quite easily, retrieving data and restoring business systems becomes simpler too in the event of a breach or disaster. To view and retrieve backed-up business data, your administrator may easily connect to the cloud from anywhere, using any device. Even when the office is shut, a cloud backup and recovery solution can restore business data whether it’s from home, hotels, or convention centers.

Effortless backup

Without effective data backup, you can’t have a business continuity solution. Cloud-based data backup is 99% reliable, which means there is little to no risk of backup failure and data loss. There is no single point of failure because your data is saved in various locations via the cloud. This is superior to traditional backup methods like physical drives and servers. And unlike physical servers and devices, location and region have no bearing on the ability to backup data. All you need is an internet connection and secure device.

Multiple data storage platforms are available in the cloud with backup capabilities. Using a backup and recovery storage solution connected to cloud storage platforms, your data can be smoothly and automatically backed up to those storage platforms at all hours of the day, ensuring that your business and customer experiences are never disrupted.

Secure disaster recovery

While data needs to be accessible to all the relevant stakeholders, it must also be secure end-to-end. Access should be restricted by adequate authentication methods, and data should be encrypted when in storage or being transmitted to an employee’s device. An end-to-end backup and disaster recovery solution will not only restore your data but also perform all necessary checks on the devices it is being restored to. The solution makes sure there are no vulnerabilities that can be exploited during the recovery process, while also validating device health and users through multiple authentication methods.

Lowest downtime

With the support of data duplication technologies and automated recovery, cloud-based Disaster Recovery solutions are capable of accomplishing more aggressive recovery point and recovery time objectives than traditional solutions. Cloud-based disaster recovery enables you to define faster recovery timeframes and reduce downtime like never.

Cost-effectiveness

Any organization that tries to build a business continuity plan without using the cloud will not only incur huge initial capital costs, but also high monthly operational costs that can drive up budgets and impact the bottom line. Expenses associated with on-premise solutions, such as on-site hardware, set-up and maintenance expenditures, physical security, and server technicians, are eliminated with cloud-based business continuity.

Why you need an effective backup and disaster recovery plan

Regardless of revenues, size, or sector, having a business continuity strategy and disaster recovery protocol in place is critical. Here is how you can start with business continuity and disaster recovery plans off the ground.

Begin by examining the most crucial business functions that have the greatest impact on operations. Analyze your organizational processes, determine their importance, and identify potential risks.

Document the methods and protocols required to recover your most critical applications and data so that users can continue to function efficiently wherever they are in the event of data loss due to a breach or disaster.

Create a detailed plan for dealing with a crisis. Determine which internal teams will be in charge of implementing each piece, and make the plan available to all employees and users so that everyone understands what to do in the event of a disaster.

Cloud-based solutions can offer effective business continuity capabilities while reducing the financial costs of data loss or service outages. For example, a DRaaS (Disaster Recovery as a Service) solution enables you to meet recovery point objectives (RPOs) and recovery time objectives (RTOs) faster than any on-premise hosted recovery system. Thus, it enables minimal downtime and uninterrupted workflows, and significantly reduces the financial impact.

Conclusion

Unexpected events, such as equipment failures, power outages, ransomware, malicious attacks, and natural disasters, affect many enterprises. Such adverse situations can pose a threat to business continuity, revenues, reputation, and customer trust by affecting operations and causing processes to fail. A business continuity strategy and disaster recovery program that covers your key IT infrastructure, as well as business data and apps, can help keep your organization going even in the worst-case scenarios. A simple data backup solution is not enough; you need the cloud to leverage reliable, affordable, real-time disaster recovery.

ZeaCloud’s Availablous® backup and disaster recovery solution serves as your first line of defense against data availability issues. To know how your organization can benefit from it, get in touch with our experts.

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