Despite security misgivings about cloud computing, its capabilities have revolutionised the business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) space, moving many businesses inexorably in that direction for those services.
However, experts warn that there are several key considerations a business must take into account before deciding to place this vital security component in a cloud provider’s hands.
Ben McGahon, managing director of Comsys said, "There are several factors to consider and it all comes down to the myriad of technical and business requirements that the customer has."
McGahon felt that for many SMEs, there is now a number of "excellent online BCDR facilities that are providing a very good level of service and can meet their requirements for DR recovery times, security and compliance". However, he would add that most medium-to-large organisations will find that cloud based services, as they exist currently, are still "not adequate as a solution to all of their requirements".
With this in mind, he said medium-to-large businesses tend to use cloud-based options for point solutions in specific areas, such as archiving or back-up of non-production data for test environments.
SEVERAL FORMS
Howard Roberts, technical director with Arkphire, noted that cloud-based BCDR can come in several forms. "A company can take advantage of disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS). This is where a company replicates key systems to a DR service provider and the DR service provider tailors recovery options depending on the recovery time objective (RTO) of the systems," said Roberts
He also added that a company may opt to create their own private cloud-based DR solution. This can be achieved by utilising a geographically separate data centre or a data centre provider.
Meanwhile it should not be forgotten that in a vast amount of cases businesses have applications which have already moved to the cloud, such as those utilising Platform as a Service (PaaS) or Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions. "In this case the company would expect to have full DR provided by the vendor (eg Google or Microsoft) as part of the service," said Roberts.
ACTIVE
Datapac’s Suzanne Brady said that "without doubt" Irish businesses have become much more active in terms of ensuring their business data is being backed-up consistently and securely, and that "cloud-based BCDR services typically provide organisations with a more reliable, secure and cost-effective service".
"By continuously backing data up to a managed server in a secure data centre environment," said Brady, "businesses typically have much more resilient disaster recovery solutions in place. Cloud-based BCDR offerings can eliminate many of the errors that often occurred with on-site tape and disk-based back-up solutions.
"But although cloud-based BCDR solutions offer more comprehensive cover, none are completely 100% fail proof," she added. "There will always be some downtime in a disaster situation. Each organisation, depending on the sector they operate in, needs to set a realistic RTO to retrieve their core business data."
REDUCE COST
While each of the experts that ComputerScope spoke to referred to the numerous factors which must be taken into account when deciding to opt for a cloud-based BCDR option, most also admitted that the advantages of these offerings can be pretty compelling. For instance, Stephen Moffat, cloud computing leader with IBM Ireland, said, "the great thing about cloud in a DR context is that cloud levels of virtualisation and automation allow providers to create computing environments faster and reduce the cost of infrastructure".
This increases the speed with which companies can restore apps and data and reduces the cost of DR facilities, said Moffat. Elsewhere, Michael Martin, managed services solutions manager, Trilogy Technologies warned that, "the one important thing to remember when dealing with the cloud is to never assume that somebody or some other organisation is looking after your data".
Martin added that those investing in cloud-based BCDR solutions have to be aware that the data is "your company’s responsibility". He said that it is critical to take this into account in moving to a cloud provider, while it is also "advisable to have your back-ups and cloud service offering provided by different service providers".
PROLIFERATION OF VENDORS
For those choosing to invest in cloud-based BCDR, the exact make-up of the right offering is not easy to determine. Asked what functionalities should be included in a standard option, Roberts said the simple answer is: "it depends".
The Arkphire technical director commented that there is a "proliferation of vendors", offering all levels of BCDR functionality, from basic on-line back-up to synchronous data replication with fully automated failover and failback. The deciding factors for many then will be driven by "cost, the value of the data, security and compliance regulations".
Roberts did, however, cover some of the key features that many businesses investing in this area will be looking out for, top of which is fast RTO, with the provider "likely to charge based on how fast the RTO is".
He added, customers should make sure they are only charged for the actual compute, memory and storage that the BCDR system uses, resulting in a lower cost outside of a DR event. Self-service is another plus, with Roberts noting that the customer should be able to administrate the BCDR solution "without the intervention of vendor engineer or architect".
TESTING
Trilogy’s Martin also weighed in on the topic, and said that investors are looking for the ability "to get your data out onto physical media for recovery". He continued, "Testing of the solution to ensure BCDR solution is viable rather than assume it works is also worthwhile service the provider should be able to provide."
Meanwhile the senior security consultant for BT Ireland, Conor Murphy commented that when choosing a cloud-based supplier, organisations should check with suppliers that the cloud solution is hosted in a secure data centre and that data centre has achieved recommended ISO standards such as ISO 27001 for information security, BS25999 for business continuity, and ISO 20000 for service management.
Continuing on the make-up of a solid BCDR option, Murphy said that organisations should expect PaaS and IaaS capabilities as standard. Noting how IaaS frees up resources organisations would otherwise use to house, run and maintain the relevant equipment, Murphy added, "This approach is best suited for resource intensive activities, such as development and testing". He also said that a worthwhile cloud management should at least provide "greater visibility into private cloud infrastructures while optimising workloads".
VERY CAREFUL
Renaissance director Michael Conway said that while cloud has "changed the landscape" for BCDR, companies investing in this space have to be very careful indeed. Commenting that at the SME-end of the cloud-based BCDR market has been "heavily over-sold", Conway added that "if you ask a lot of people about BCDR, they’ll say they have cloud-based disaster recovery and cloud-based back-up, but when you ask what is backed up into the cloud the response is often ‘whatever I need’."
The Renaissance director continued, "Though when you get into inquiring as to what they have backed up into the cloud it’s actually very little, often just a bit of critical data is backed up. That’s not disaster recovery, that’s not business continuity."
Conway added that he’s seen "loads of organisations" who have abandoned traditional back-ups in favour of the cloud. "They’re sold the message they don’t need the traditional options," he said but often this means they don’t have the full capabilities needed within the cloud solution for a "full restore" of systems.
Many cloud-based BCDR still does not offer a "full copy of systems, they don’t have all the operating systems, don’t have all the company’s applications, they just have their critical traditional data files," said Conway.
"If you want to avoid a full disaster a company first has to know they can test the systems and can fully restore from the cloud back-ups," Conway added, before revealing that when he asks many businesses if they possess these capabilities within their cloud options "the answer is often depressing".
TRADITIONAL SOLUTIONS
Conway is not the only expert who warns businesses about placing too much faith in the cloud. McGahon was quick to point out that in Comsys’ experience, "most cloud-based DR does not fully incorporate into the customer’s WAN environment, so often customers cannot use WAN accelerators such as RiverBed or Silverpeak to optimise traffic."
He added that this has serious implications for cost control and other efficiencies, "because bandwidth optimisation is now a critical cost and IT efficiency issue for most customers, particularly those with multiple sites".
The needs of most large scale organisations are not being addressed by existing cloud services, said McGahon, as they cannot yet provide the scale and security assurances needed for many industries legal compliance requirements.
"For the most organisations we see a mix of private, hybrid and public cloud being deployed due to the considerations and requirements of different customers and different parts of the IT infrastructure. For larger organisations in particular, this is still the best option to pursue," he added.
Richard O’Brien, technical director with Triangle would also commented that, "Telephony services, printing, user access and customer interaction continue to need a solution in any BCDR scenario, areas not typically covered by ‘pure’ cloud based services." He also noted that, "any holistic BCDR solution" for a customer maybe more suited to a traditional service provider, locally delivered.
On a similar note, IBM’s Moffat said that, "Of course, cloud can’t provide many of the facilities for business continuity and DR that will continue to be provided in the same way-workspaces for employees, office compute and printing, meeting facilities et cetera."
NEXT YEAR
Despite the above advice though, with the rapid pace of cloud development set to continue, investment in these solutions will only grow. But in terms of the offerings that will be available, what will the next year to 18 months bring in terms of cloud-based BCDR?
For Moffat, the standout development for him will be how the move to pay as you go (PAYG) business resilience will continue to gather pace.
"If we’re paying for the hardware and the software we use on a PAYG basis we’ll expect to pay for the back-up and recovery resources we consume too. We’ll see more Irish enterprises turning to experts to provide their business resilience-continuity. Enterprises want to focus on the small number of things that are most important to their survival and profit-customers, the supply chain, financial management, and their competitors."
Triangle’s O’Brien meanwhile commented that over the next year "IP-based replication services to the cloud such as Zerto, will enhance the recovery point objective (RPO) for critical services without requiring expensive dedicated infrastructure". This, combined with the needs of physical supporting infrastructure, "will drive the delivery of hybrid models for BCDR," he added.
Significantly, the next few years may see enormous development in terms of "type and size in data volumes". Pinpointing this as an area to watch out for major development, Datapac’s Brady added that with "an exponential growth in data" in businesses around the globe, "there has also been a dramatic increase in the number of devices that data is being created and stored on".
Brady added that in the enterprise space, the key players are at least releasing new options to address these developments. "HP offer EVS (Electronic Vaulting Service) back-up to the cloud and just recently, EMC launched Avamar 6.1 de-duplication software which offers the industry’s fastest back-up and recovery performance for VMware environments," noted Brady.
Speaking in more general terms, Trilogy managed services solutions manager, Martin said that, "with the rapid growth of private cloud deployments the move to mix private and public will increase also, particularly in the area of BCDR".
Continuing on his point, Martin added, "Being able to harness public cloud infrastructure for DR, allows companies to establish good DR solutions with little capital expenditure. Integration with the technology solutions and services such as VMware vCloud, allows customers to see and manage their public and private infrastructures under one roof and have the advantage of robust and secure infrastructure with reduced costs."
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