By Rodeny Ellis
Backup and recovery in cloud computing has become an essential part of data storage for companies across various industries. Data security is a major risk for businesses due to the growing number of data breaches and ransomware attacks that could lead to a decrease in business confidence. Backup and recovery in cloud computing may enhance a company’s data security strategy without increasing IT personnel effort.
In this article, we will look at the meaning of cloud-based backup and recovery solutions, as well as important considerations for choosing a cloud computing provider.
Backup and Recovery in Cloud Computing: Important Considerations
Before settling on a cloud computing provider, companies need to determine what their backup and recovery strategy needs are and look for a provider that best meets those requirements, in some cases a single provider might not be able to fulfill all the requirements and a multi-cloud or datacentre strategy might be needed.
Some considerations:
- Data and storage governance
- Data retention periods
- Data or service recovery time
- Backup Frequency and Speed
When you think about backing up your data in the cloud, data recovery is not the only thing to worry about. Some cloud service providers can move as much as 5TB of data in 12 hours. Some services may be slower. Considerations on available bandwidth, how many files and the size of the files being transferred, and the type of backup if full or incremental. In the long run, it is important to think about the data transfer costs especially from on-premise to a cloud provider as egress traffic might come at a cost.
Cloud Storage Costs
In most cases, you can store almost any digital file in the cloud. Cost is attributed to how much storage space is rented and which storage mediums are used, these are important factors to think about before selecting a recovery plan. Some data plans allow you to back up and restore important files immediately when needed. They can also have options for slower recovery times, and archive storage. At first, these options might not seem important, but they could have a significant impact later in the disaster recovery scenario. Companies should have a clear plan about what they need to store in the cloud and what pricing structure they require.
Availability of Backup Systems
During the disaster recovery process, a company needs to know how long it will take to get its data back in order to keep all of its wheels turning. Some services would require backups to be available immediately where others could be hours or days, backups should always be available to avoid any problems that could hurt business confidence. The cloud provider can tell you how long it takes to recover data and how soon you can get it back after a disaster.
Data Protection
The security of data stored and backed up should follow certain security rules to stop cybercriminals from taking advantage of any weaknesses. The cloud service provider needs to make sure that all backed-up data is safe by using best practice networking security like firewalls and the encryption of files.
User Friendliness
Cloud-based backup services are typically accessible from any location. If it cannot be accessed from outside the office as well as inside the office, it will not be useful. These services can also be locked down to specific networks if required. Ease of use
is an important factor to consider when choosing a cloud storage provider.
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