By Nick Russo, Chief Technology Officer, Host.net
The amount of data produced every day is astounding. According to IDC, the digital universe is growing by 40 percent every year. By 2020, data created annually will reach 44 zettabytes, or 44 trillion gigabytes. That’s a mind-blowing figure. Your business may not be creating that much data, but you and your employees are constantly creating mission- and business-critical data every day that you can’t afford to lose. If your network infrastructure was to experience an outage, you would lose your critical data, and the overall loss to your business, productivity, sales and customer confidence could be incredibly costly. The causes of downtime can come in many forms, including natural disasters, equipment failure, human error and cyber attacks. You never know when a disaster might affect you, so it’s best to think through your unique business and IT requirements, and develop a Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity (DR/BC) plan.
According to a TechTarget survey, the consensus within the disaster recovery industry is that most enterprises are still not prepared for a disaster. Only about 50 percent of companies report they have a disaster recovery plan in place. Of those that do, nearly half of them have never even tested their plan. Don’t put your critical data at risk. It is important to think through your options and determine which DR/BC solution is right for your business and budget. Some companies, such as financial institutions and retail businesses, are highly transactional companies and can’t afford to have any downtime at all. Healthcare providers also need instant access to patient data. Other types of businesses might not suffer as greatly from downtime, but they can only tolerate it for so long before serious issues arise.
When putting together a DR/BC plan, there are two key elements to first consider. First is a Recovery Time Objective (RTO), which is the point in the future when you will be up and running after an outage. Another way to think of it is to consider how long can you go without a specific application? You should also consider Recovery Point Objective (RPO), which is the point in time in the past that you will recover to and dictates the allowable data loss.
How much data can you afford to lose if your data network goes down? If your threshold for one or both of these metrics is low, then an enterprise-class, hypervisor-based replication solution might be for you.
As a South Florida colocation, cloud and service provider, Host.net offers Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) solutions that make failover, failback and disaster recovery testing easy, while significantly reducing operational costs. Through its partnership with Zerto, Host.net offers a cloud-ready, real-time virtual replication service providing both geographic diversity and high security. This type of service is perfect for mission-critical applications and companies that have zero tolerance for downtime.
Some of the benefits of a cloud-ready solution include:
- Seamless Scalability that delivers consistent protection, even as your environment grows
- Customized RTO/RPO options based on specific requirements
- Simplified pricing models
- Fully-managed so you can focus on your core business
- Minimizing risk by seamlessly integrating with existing infrastructure
- Consistent protection while supporting your growth and revenue objectives
- Automated application protection by utilizing replication technology
The flexibility and agility of a cloud-based infrastructure provides a clear advantage. A dynamic environment enables businesses to prepare, manage, respond and recover in the event of a disaster. The most optimal solution is one that is purpose-built for virtualized environments and focuses not only on recovery of your critical data, but also on resiliency in the event of a disaster.
About the Author
Nick Russo joined Host.net in June 2016 as the Chief Technical Officer. He oversees the company’s current technology and creates relevant policy. Nick brings with him 20 years of IT experience in the Managed Service Provider area, as well as with LAN and WAN architecture. He is responsible for executing the company’s technical vision, identifying emerging technology trends, research and development and crafting new solutions. He communicates the company’s technology strategy to partners, management, investors and employees.
