
- 1 out of every 4 computers experience failure annually (Gartner);
- 1 in 4 organizations have undergone a complete IT disaster (Forrester);
- 3 out of 4 companies have not deployed redundancies for 100% of their virtual machines (Veeam);
- 19 out of 20 establishments experience a lapse in data accessibility each year (Ponemon Institute);
- medium-sized firms log approximate total downtime of 18 hours annually (Gartner);
- the expense of that downtime, per business, averages $1.3 million (Gartner); and
- the estimated value of data ranges tremendously based on type: per gigabyte, the expense of data regeneration is $850,000 for sales, $950,000 for accounting, and $4.9 million for engineering (National Computer Security Association).
- multiple geographical locations can be easily and efficiently used for backups;
- the solution is relatively inexpensive, in part because it is built on the basis of scale, meaning that companies only pay for the resources they need at a given time;
- restoration of data can occur more rapidly than with traditional methods, due to the real-time redundancies inherent to this strategy’s architecture (particularly when protected for DR);
- the clarity with which compliance can be tested and exhibited is optimized in the environment, with security features that often surpass those of on-site systems;
- automation of management decreases the need for monitoring and the possibility of human error; and
- because expenses are rendered more consistent and predictive in this system, businesses are able to set aside safeguarding resources for disaster recovery that could otherwise be absorbed by operations or development.
- Replication vs. backup – Redundancy is accomplished, in one form, by failover systems that take over when the primary systems go down. However, the failover method, which allows replication of processes to a machine – acting as a “backup” in a sense – doesn’t have the full functionality allowed by a strong backup system. Backup systems allow you to recover data from specific times in the past. Replication via failover, on the other hand, won’t necessarily allow you to recover from the point of time you need.
- Location – A fundamental reason that cloud hosting is recommended for backups is simply that the data is saved to a faraway location. Although enterprises generally have otherwise strong disaster recovery plans in place, they frequently don’t store the backups at a distant facility. Local data recovery is not always possible because outages can occur. Because speed is essential to reducing the costs and other damages of downtime, it’s crucial to have the same data available in another geographical region.
- Business continuity plan – Make sure that your business continuity plan is itself backed up. Notes Cocchiara, “[Y]ou’d be surprised how often … plans are lost in a disaster.”