Disaster Recover for the Cloud: Considerations for Small Businesses

Is Your Cloud-Only Disaster Recovery Plan Enough?

Many organizations have shifted their disaster recovery (DR) focus to cloud services, assuming “we’re in the cloud” is a sufficient plan. But how reliable is reliable enough?

How to identify the reliability concerns of cloud solutions?

Cloud platforms now support critical functions—from email and sales to financial systems and ERP. However, relying solely on the cloud for DR poses risks:

Complexity Breeds Insecurity: The intricate nature of cloud platforms makes it hard to trace and address cyberattacks. It can be impossible to hold a single party accountable
Luck vs. Security: Some providers may seem secure due to luck rather than robust measures. Properly secured SaaS solutions should handle threats regardless of user behavior. Are the ones who haven’t been hacked good or are they just lucky?
Aging Infrastructure: As cloud systems age, performance and reliability can degrade if they are not properly maintained.

When outages occur, pinpointing the cause is challenging. Recent incidents that have caused extended downtime affecting major platforms highlight the need for a comprehensive DR plan.

How to Manage Cloud Outages?

Relying solely on cloud services may not be enough. A Fractional CTO can help develop and implement a robust disaster recovery strategy tailored to modern cloud complexities.

Ensure your DR plan is as resilient as your cloud services. The essential Disaster Recovery strategies still apply:

Mitigate: Can the business function without this cloud service? How?
Insure: Will your business interruption insurance cover this outage and how much financial loss will it cover?
Accept: How much of an outage is the business willing to accept? An hour? A day? A week? What happens if it goes longer (see mitigate and insure).

Portions adapted from Uptime Institute’s Annual Outage Analysis 2024.

Conclusion

For most IT Teams Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity has become a thing of the past. Cloud-based systems have definitely reduced the criticality of the DR/BC Plan but has not removed the need for preparedness altogether. As cloud providers mature and turn their focus toward EBITDA there will be increasing instances of prolonged outages affecting hundred or thousands of businesses and entire industries. How your organization reacts will be key.