Key Considerations for DR While Using Private & Public Clouds

By

Harish K K [CTO]

Posted: September 4th, 2024

• 8 minutes and 39 seconds

There was once a young entrepreneur named John who inherited his family's traditional clothing boutique business. It was a brick-and-mortar store that only had a small number of customers. But John wanted to take the business to the next level, and he decided to launch an e-commerce site for his boutique. The e-commerce site was an instant hit, so much so that it became the major revenue driver of the business.

Things were going fine until disaster struck. The business suffered a ransomware attack. An employee had unwittingly enabled attackers to gain control over the online systems and databases. But the attackers were in for a major surprise. John had proactively implemented a robust cloud-based disaster recovery strategy, regularly backing up critical data and applications to a secure cloud environment. He had also configured a failover site that could quickly take over operations in case of a disruptive event like this ransomware attack.

His IT team didn’t fall for the attackers’ threats. Instead, they calmly executed the disaster recovery plan—restoring systems and data from the cloud backups and failing over to the redundant site. Within hours, the e-commerce store was up and running smoothly, minimizing downtime and data loss. This incident underscores why having a disaster recovery strategy should never be an afterthought.

In this blog post, we will zoom in on the concept of disaster recovery from a different angle. We will comprehensively cover how disaster recovery works for different cloud deployment models—private and public while outlining the key benefits.

But first, let’s kickstart the blog by gaining a clear understanding of ‘cloud-based disaster recovery solutions.’

What are Cloud-Based Disaster Recovery Solutions (DR)?

Traditionally, disaster recovery solutions involve setting up on-prem data centers with backup, replication, and failover capabilities. In this setup, you must manage the resources, perform routine maintenance activities, monitor your systems, and ensure the total security of the data center. But this approach comes with a lot of disadvantages, such as high operational costs, limited disaster recovery coverage, minimal protection from widespread events, and much more.

Nonetheless, with the advent of cloud and cloud-based disaster recovery solutions, you can overcome these challenges easily. By adopting cloud technology, you can outsource your disaster recovery needs to third-party cloud vendors. These vendors operate off-site data centers and leverage their physical infrastructure to provision virtual cloud environments to streamline your disaster recovery strategy.

Cloud-based disaster recovery solutions have gained tremendous traction in recent years. The number of enterprises adopting the cloud DR strategy is on the rise since it enables you to cut down on the major expenses associated with maintaining an on-prem data center.

When it comes to the two most prevalent cloud deployment models—private and public—disaster recovery (DR) works quite differently. In the subsequent sections, we will delve into the details.

Understanding Public Cloud and Private Cloud

Private Cloud

A private cloud is a distinct cloud computing environment that is exclusive to a single user or entity. Due to this single-tenant characteristic, it offers heightened security, control, and privacy. Primarily, there are two private cloud types—on-premises private cloud and hosted/managed private cloud. Before going into the details of leveraging private clouds for disaster recovery, you must gain a firm understanding of both these types.

  1. On-premises private cloud: This is deployed within your organization’s data center infrastructure, using the existing virtualization, servers, storage, etc. You will retain full control and management responsibilities.
  2. Hosted/Managed private cloud: The private cloud environment is hosted and managed by a third-party cloud provider in their data center. The provider manages and maintains the complete private cloud environment, including the underlying infrastructure. You will essentially get a fully dedicated, single-tenant private cloud environment without any management or maintenance burdens.

Advantages of Using Private Cloud for Disaster Recovery:

  • Enhanced security, privacy, and compliance compared to public cloud
  • High levels of control and customization capabilities
  • Robust Service Level Agreements (SLAs) from the provider
  • No burden of managing the underlying infrastructure

Public Cloud

Unlike private clouds, public clouds are multi-tenant cloud computing environments owned and managed by third-party service providers. These providers deliver scalable cloud computing resources like servers, storage, networking, databases, and various other services over the internet on a pay-as-you-go basis. Major public cloud providers in the market are AWS, Azure, and GCP.

In the public cloud model, the service providers are responsible for managing and maintaining the underlying infrastructure while you can provision and use the resources. Highly scalable and cost-effective, public clouds offer several inherent advantages for disaster recovery use cases.

Advantages of Using Public Cloud for Disaster Recovery:

  • Cost-effective pay-as-you-go or subscription-based pricing
  • Unlimited scalability to meet surges in demand during a disaster scenario
  • Vast geographic redundancy
  • Access to the latest technologies

Introducing Hybrid Cloud Approach for Disaster Recovery

An emerging trend, a hybrid cloud setup combines the strengths of private and public clouds, resulting in a unique disaster recovery plan that is more cost-effective, flexible, and efficient.

Here are some of the benefits of a hybrid cloud disaster recovery plan:

  • Improved data integrity
  • Off-site and on-site data backup
  • Enhanced compliance adherence
  • Better control over data replication
  • High data availability

Key Considerations for DR While Using Private & Public Clouds

  1. Security:

    Security should be one of your primary considerations when it comes to disaster recovery. If your backup data and failover site are not protected, your entire disaster recovery plan will become ineffective. The single-tenant characteristic of the private cloud makes it inherently more secure, as the infrastructure is dedicated, access is restricted, and you have more control over the security configurations. On the other hand, public clouds are multi-tenant environments, which might raise a few security concerns. However, all the leading cloud providers in the market offer robust security mechanisms for protecting your valuable data.

  2. Compliance:

    If you are operating in a highly regulated industry, compliance should be your ultimate priority. Non-compliance can have severe consequences, including legal penalties, reputational damage, and customer distrust. Private cloud environments are ideal for these scenarios, as you have complete control over where the data resides. This makes it easier for you to meet compliance requirements. However, it doesn’t mean that using public clouds for disaster recovery will automatically lead to non-compliance. Major cloud providers like AWS, Azure, GCP, etc., provide relevant compliance certifications and tools. But, you may have less control over where the data resides.

  3. Cost:

    Many organizations tend to turn a blind eye toward cloud-based disaster recovery because of the cost involved. Private clouds, due to their dedicated nature, are more costly compared to public clouds. When you try to implement a disaster recovery strategy with a private cloud (both on-prem and hosted), you will have to plan for significant upfront investments in the form of infrastructure and ongoing maintenance costs. The public cloud, on the other hand, is relatively flexible when it comes to cost. All the major service providers follow a pay-as-you-go or subscription-based pricing plan with no upfront costs.

  4. Flexibility & Agility:

    Disaster recovery scenarios can spiral out of control quickly. You need an agile and flexible disaster recovery plan to respond to these scenarios effectively. Even though private clouds offer more control and customization, they might lack the flexibility and agility to rapidly provision resources or spin up new environments during a disaster. However, public clouds are extremely flexible and agile. Resources can be provisioned on-demand, and new environments can be quickly set up across multiple regions, enabling you to respond swiftly to disasters and meet changing recovery needs.

  5. Data Residency & Control:

    Private clouds are exclusive to you, providing you complete control over data residency while allowing you to configure Recovery Time Objective (RTO) Recovery Point Objective (RPO) as per your disaster recovery requirements. This can be extremely beneficial for you in the long run, but it comes at the cost of having to invest in and manage the entire private cloud infrastructure yourself. For public clouds, the RTO and RPO may not be as low as private clouds, as they might be dependent on the provider’s capabilities. However, public clouds can offer higher availability across regions for faster recovery.

Gsoft Cloud: Enabling Effective Disaster Recovery

At Gsoft Cloud, we understand the significant impact of downtime on businesses. Our Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) suite ensures robust data protection, efficient failover orchestration, and streamlined recovery processes. Our team of cloud experts works closely with you to design, implement, and continuously optimize your disaster recovery strategy, ensuring your critical systems and data remain resilient against potential disruptions.

To enable effective disaster recovery, we provide:

  • On-prem private clouds
  • Hosted/managed private clouds
  • Managed public clouds
  • Hybrid cloud architectures

Summary

Deciding between private, public, or hybrid clouds for optimizing your disaster recovery strategy requires careful evaluation of various factors. These factors include overall cost, compliance adherence, availability, redundancy, and more. But ultimately, you must back up your data and establish mechanisms for timely recovery.

In today’s highly dynamic digital ecosystem, failing to have a sound disaster recovery strategy exposes your business to significant risks. Disaster can strike at any time, and threat actors are continuously seeking vulnerabilities to exploit. But with a well-designed disaster recovery plan, you can build resilience and ensure business continuity no matter what.

Are you looking to optimize your disaster recovery strategy? Reach out to us today at www.gsoftcomm.net/contact-us/.


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