One of the best things about being in the IT industry is watching exciting changes take place and being a part of them. The new digital economy has brought about many such changes, forcing businesses and their IT infrastructure to react in new ways to meet new demands. When it comes to cloud, the changes are just as dynamic.
Research tells us that 81% of enterprises are embracing a multi-cloud strategy with a mix of solutions across private, public, and hybrid clouds – across multiple providers1. With this big move to multi-cloud, the next question is How can businesses ensure their apps and data are available across the new multi-cloud models they are adopting? Before that question is addressed, here are some stats highlighting the downside of low Availability:
- 66 % of enterprises admit that digital transformation initiatives are being held back by unplanned downtime2
- $21.8M is an average financial cost of Availability and Protection Gaps for the enterprise3
- 60% of U.S. businesses that experience a cyber-attack suffer the consequence of data loss4
Fortunately, there are some measures businesses can take to ensure optimal Availability. Here are three key multi-cloud Availability best practices to consider:
1. Leverage the cloud for backup and disaster recovery of your on-premises data
A good start for any Availability strategy is to make sure you’re following the 3-2-1 Rule, which is to have at least three copies of data, two of which are local but on different mediums, and at least one off-site copy. Businesses with a multi-cloud strategy are in an ideal position to take advantage of the cloud to help execute a 3-2-1 approach and optimize any legacy backup systems with the cloud. Veeam allows businesses to leverage any public cloud provider, including AWS, Microsoft Azure, and IBM Cloud or a managed service provider to protect data off-site or get a disaster recovery solution to meet RTO and RPO requirements.
2. Protect your data that’s already in the cloud
It’s important to have control and protection over data already deployed in the cloud. Email data, for instance, is something many organizations must retain for extended periods of time for compliance and regulatory needs. Whether you’re using a SaaS solution, such as Microsoft Office 365, or hosting your email application on IaaS, it is critical to have protection against accidental deletions, outages, or a malicious attack. Availability solutions such as Veeam help achieve protection with copies of your data to another location – either on-premises or to a different cloud data center.
3. Replicate and migrate applications and data within your cloud
In a multi-cloud strategy, you’ll most likely have “born in the cloud” applications in your environment. Being able to replicate these applications for data protection and recovery will be critical to make sure these apps stay up and running in the event of un-expected downtime. For instance, you may currently run your cloud-based app in the IBM Cloud data center located in Houston, Texas. With Veeam, you can easily replicate and migrate this app to any of the 50+ IBM Cloud data centers around the world whether that’s Dallas, São Paulo, Milan, Frankfurt, Tokyo, Hong Kong, or to any data center within your cloud to meet your data protection and migration needs.
With the momentum to multi-cloud adoption in full swing, having an Availability strategy and plan is more important than ever. Keep these approaches in mind when assessing how you’ll enable Availability across your multi-cloud environment, so you can confidently accelerate innovation without worrying about disruption to your business.
You can get started with an Availability strategy for your multi-cloud environment by visiting our dedicated page.
1 Source: ESG, 2017 Public Cloud Computing Trends, April 2017
2 Source: Veeam 2017 Availability Report
3 Source: Veeam 2017 Availability Report
4 Source: Half of U.S. Businesses Report Being Hacked
See More:
- Discover Veeam’s Iaas Backup Solution