Demystifying the cloud

By Ray Scanlon

If you’ve been intimidated by all the hype surrounding cloud computing, you’ll be glad to know that for once in your life, this technology is pretty simple — at least in how you and your company use it. “The Cloud” is just a metaphor for the internet and it works just like an electricity grid – resources, software, and information are provided to users on demand and in the quantity demanded. The cloud network behaves like a collective virtual computer, where the applications can run independently from individual computers or server configurations. The hardware isn’t important; the application is.

Any business of any size, and even individuals, can consume storage space, software and other resources “in the cloud” without having to own or manage a datacentre.

Recovery as a service

Leveraging public or private cloud computer infrastructure to allow for another avenue for disaster recovery is becoming popular as more companies begin to explore cloud architecture. 

Vendors can provide tools that leverage cloud computer and storage platforms (such as Amazon Web Services EC2 and S3 products) to create a complete backup and rapid-restoration platform for systems capable of virtualisation. Some allow for protection of entire servers from your location, over a VPN connection, to one or more public cloud-based data-warehousing solutions. If a server fails at the primary business location, it can be restored either to another cloud computer resource, or restored back to the primary location onto repaired or replaced hardware. Often, the choice of restoration location isn't required until the restore is about to begin, which allows for a great degree of flexibility. Organisations are contracting for cloud computer resources and then parcelling out those resources to business units for DR purposes, while allowing these business units to continue business as usual on their current production data-systems. 

The advantages of this are numerous. You can introduce the idea of public or private cloud technology into areas that would be hesitant to put their production systems on such platforms. In short, cloud platforms can help introduce using cloud computer and storage resources in a non-production form - this is the traditional entrance-way for emerging technologies in the enterprise, and a great fit for public and private clouds. 

How cloud backup and recovery works

Cloud backup and recovery requires a combination of technologies: backup and recovery software plus a cloud service providers (CSP). This combination allows you to replicate data and system state information from servers in your production environment into a virtual server - called a repository - running at the CSP. From this repository, you can restore entire servers to virtual machines - also housed at the CSP - to resume normal operations quickly and effectively.   Good backup and recovery software is more than an IaaS target DR hardware site, it will be a full RaaS solution that includes both the target infrastructure, and the technologies to replicate and recover your data effectively in the cloud.

Is cloud backup and recovery right for your organisation?

Finding the right balance of features and price to meet your RPO and RTO is one of the most critical things you can do to protect your business.

Today, the idea of "The Cloud" still has a long way to go before we can be sure exactly what its definitions, roles and limitations will be.  There is a tremendous amount of promise in public, private and hybrid cloud platforms, and much of this promise can be seen in the real-world implementations of cloud technology in the market today.  Leveraging cloud platforms where they make the most sense is a matter of careful evaluation and proper migration - in much the same way as most other technology within the corporate organisation.  The right partners, the right tools and the right platforms can all work together today to build the data systems that will continue to serve you well for the future. 

About

Mr. Mark Scanlon, Regional Director for United Kingdom and Ireland has worked for Vision Solutions for the past four years in developing the business partner channel and strategic direction for the company. Mr. Scanlon has over 25 years experience working in the IT industry in a variety of sales and sales management roles in the UK and Europe for a number of blue-chip vendors and ISVs.

 Mr. Scanlon has great insight and knowledge through working closely within the banking and finance sector as well as retail and logistics