The Pros and Cons of Cloud Backup and Disaster Recovery
Article
"The Pros and Cons of Cloud Backup and Disaster Recovery"
Understanding the cloud backup and disaster recovery to prevent information loss and their impact on businesses
With the increasing number
of security breaches and data hackers, disaster can strike anytime. In a study
by the University of Maryland, hackers attack every 39
seconds. If businesses are not well prepared to handle such crises, it can cost
thousands of dollars per hour. Therefore, understanding of cloud backup and
disaster recovery is very important for every small and medium business.
Cloud Backup
The delivery of on-demand
computing services comes under Cloud Computing. The word cloud refers to the
internet and computing refers to services. The cloud services include storage,
servers, databases, networking, software, etc. over the internet. Cloud
computing minimizes the cost of purchasing and maintaining costly hardware,
software, and IT infrastructure. This technology is much more flexible and
cost-effective. The SMB’s can pay only for what they use. One of the major
cloud services is to maintain application and database backups. This service is
known as Cloud Backup. The data from SMB’s servers are backed up and stored on
remote servers. In case of any failure or disaster, the data is safe and
readily available due to cloud backup solutions.
Disaster Recovery
At the time of the occurrence of some failures or disasters, the area of security planning that
protects and recovers the data from remote servers is known as Disaster
Recovery or DR. Disaster Recovery is a well-planned combination of strategies
and services for backing up data. This cloud service is gaining popularity with
the demand for cloud backup solutions as there is no need for backing up data
from data centers to tape, drives, or other hardware.
Pros and Cons of Cloud Backup
The cloud backup solution offers a number of advantages. Some of the pros of Cloud Backup are:
- Cloud backup solutions are good for small and medium businesses with their frequent increase in storage demands.
- The
solutions are on-demand i.e. as per the requirement SMB’s can add storage.
- The backup process can be initiated from remote locations by using even smartphones.
- Provision
of frequent data backups or in small intervals. This minimizes the chances of
data loss
Each of the above-mentioned pros has some cons associated with it. Some of the cons of Cloud Backup are:
- There might be a limitation of data storage on the cloud due to storage space availability.
- The storage space in the cloud has some costs. Businesses have to pay that
cost in order to make use of it.
- When the internet goes down on either side (user or provider), the
information can not be accessed.
- The full data recovery requires a lot of time and has some impacts on the system.
However, by using the right cloud solutions the cons can be handled efficiently.
Pros and Cons of Disaster Recovery
Like Could Backup solution,
Disaster Recovery has also some pros and cons.
Pros of Disaster Recovery:
- This allows businesses to recover data from remote locations. With the advantage of cloud storage, data remains safe if the data center suffers from any disaster.
- The retrieval of data during data recovery can be done at any point in time if there is an internet connection.
- The in-house data storage involves software up-gradation, maintenance, performance monitoring, etc. to keep the system up-to-date. So that data can be recovered completely. This practice is time-consuming and involves human intervention. In cloud disaster recovery it is the responsibility of the provider to take care of all this.
- It offers flexibility in terms of scale-out.
Cons of Disaster Recovery:
- A certain level of risk is associated with Cloud services due to the connection with the internet.
- Lack of security may compromise business data.
- Different
providers offer different plans for using cloud services and cloud backup
solutions. Some follow a pay-for-what-you-use model and some provide fixed
cloud services which may be more than what the SMB’s required.
- There
is a behind-the-scene administration requirement for managing the settings and
tool adjustment for Cloud Disaster Recovery.
However, some providers place management tools in
front and offer help desk assistance.
Solution
The pros of Cloud Backup
and Disaster Recovery have more weight than their cons. The future is
completely moving towards Cloud services and Cloud backup solutions. Although
Cloud Computing is in use for more than a decade, cloud services and cloud
recovery solutions are improving every year.
With the hit of the pandemic,
almost everything has moved up to the cloud. Irrespective of the organization's size,
every business is adopting cloud service and cloud backup solutions to operate
remotely with great flexibility and efficiency.
