For IT departments and CTOs across a wide range of organizations and industries, implementing a comprehensive disaster recovery plan remains at the top of priority lists – whether it’s taking the step to create one from the ground up or update an existing plan to meet today’s data demands. Fortunately for those IT leaders, as IT Business Edge points out, the cloud provides a “potent and powerful tool” to help organizations implement successful disaster recovery and business continuity plans.
According to a recent report, the cloud improves disaster recovery confidence by 16 percent – 90 percent of IT professionals who include cloud into their disaster recovery plans are confident in their strategy, while 74 percent who only used on-premise solutions expressed confidence in their plans. While it’s great to see that level of confidence in disaster recovery, regardless of approach, the discrepancy in confidence can mean the difference between maintaining 24/7/365 uptime and dealing with the damage of being offline for as little as an hour.
And while disaster recovery has traditionally been implemented in preparation of dangerous weather or other natural disasters, today’s increasingly connected landscape means organizations’ disaster recovery plans also need to include protocol for any IT downtime – whether it’s caused by a power outage, human error or a cybersecurity attack.
When adopting a cloud-based disaster recovery plan, it’s important to consider:
Preparation – having a documented disaster recovery plan is just as important as testing that plan and communicating protocol with all IT personnel. Planning and testing should be reviewed at least once a year, and particularly after any downtime incident. Performance – Cloud solutions, whether it’s public, private or hybrid, must leverage top notch equipment that enables your business with scalable, reliable and secure IT services.
Service availability – Whatever solutions your disaster recovery plan includes, you should be able to count on 100 percent uptime (like at Markley Group.) Disaster recovery storage must be accessible 24/7/365.
Capacity – Selecting a solution (or solutions) that can grow with your business is critical. Being able to scale quickly and efficiency is critical to maintaining business continuity.
Network latency – Latency is more important than ever in making sure you can accomplish business goals and remain connected to your data, whenever it’s needed.
At Markley Group, we take disaster recovery very seriously. Our 352,000 square foot, mission critical facility in Lowell, Mass. features 1,000 disaster recovery hot seats, providing a secure and comfortable workspace with network access and emergency backup systems that can be used to ensure your business keeps running in the event your primary workplace is unavailable. Additionally, Markley’s cloud point-of-deliveries (POD) are available in Massachusetts, Texas, Virginia and California, and provide companies with the offerings needed to diversify their disaster recovery strategies and limit damage if any one location goes offline.
If you are interested in learning how Markley Group can support your disaster recovery needs, including Markley Cloud Services’ industry leading, object storage solution, MCS Archive, please contact us at info@markleygroup.com.
