Disaster Recovery plans and infrastructures are a necessity for large enterprises for which operating would be an issue if their mission critical applications were to crash or become unavailable. Most DR infrastructures have adopted the method of replicating the infrastructure and hardware of the primary site at a backup location; this ensures that when an issue occurs at the primary site, applications can still be served from an unaffected location that contains the necessary capacity. However, replicating an already complex infrastructure is time consuming and costly to not just build, but to maintain too. Cloud DR looks to build upon DR plans by providing a virtualized cloud infrastructure that is able to operate idly with minimal resources, but can scale up to cope with demand when the primary site fails.

Reduction in DR costs

Moving a DR configuration into the cloud can help you to realize huge cost savings by reducing the amount of physical infrastructure that you need to maintain and rely on to protect you in the event of a disaster that takes down your primary data center locations. Because a DR environment only requires resources that are of a bare minimum when it isn’t being actively used, the amount that you are paying will also be the bare minimum.

As a physical DR environment is comprised of hardware and resources that are equal to that of your primary sites, the amount being paid for is often the same as that of the primary site, the only difference being that most of the time these resources are lying idle. So in effect, with traditional DR you could be paying for unused resources a lot of the time. In a cloud DR configuration, if it is called into action then additional resources can be automatically provisioned as the environment scales to cope with the demand being placed on it. Once demand recedes, the resources are then returned to the cloud. With cloud DR you will only ever be paying for resources that are actually being used, which is where the cost efficiencies arise.

Virtualization caters for unpredictable demand

With traditional DR, the capacity of the DR environment is equal to that of the primary site. So whilst there will be enough capacity to meet demand when the primary site is down, it does mean that even when the DR environment is in use that there could still be a substantial amount of free resources. These are free resources that you will still be paying for. DR in the cloud accounts for this unpredictable demand by scaling up to account for the demand placed on it, so you are only ever paying for resources that are actually being used, therefore there will never be any spare resources. This can also be of assistance for times where demand is actually more than even the primary site can handle.

Minimal recovery time

With cloud DR, the backup environment will be ready to serve your mission critical applications the moment any issues are detected at your primary sites. In the event that your primary site does become unavailable, your end-users shouldn’t notice any difference as we have designed the failover process to take place with minimal downtime. Once your end-users have been transferred to the DR environment, you can get to work repairing the primary site as soon as possible to minimize the amount of time that is spent utilizing the recovery site. Once you have repaired the issue and are confident that the primary site is ready to be returned to live use, the transfer from the DR site to primary site will also be flawless and completed with minimal downtime. These processes make sure that issues don’t have the opportunity to have a large, negative impact on your business; although sometimes they may take time and money to repair, from your end-user’s perspective at least your business will continue to operate as normal because they will still be able to access their mission critical applications and data without issue.

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It seems that everyone is talking cloud these days. Have you been thinking about making the switch over to cloud hosting but not really sure if it’s the right fit for your business? Cloud hosting offers a wide variety of benefits. Let’s take a look at some of the most important ones…

Scaling Resources

The ability to scale resources (such as memory, CPU, and SAN storage space) is an important piece of cloud hosting.

Scalability gives your business the ability to handle major traffic fluctuations during busy seasons. Think a florist website on Valentine’s Day, a swimwear store in the height of summer or a toy store around the holidays for example. Scaling resources ensure full availability, even with an influx of visitors because of a special promotion, ad campaign or media mention. Cloud hosting also allows for resources to be scaled down when the busy season slows – very important to controlling costs.

And scalability in the cloud just got better! The new Microsoft Windows 2012 server management capability offers increased scaling abilities for cloud customers, with up to 64 CPUs and 1TB memory per cloud server.  Click to learn more about our Windows Cloud Servers.

Better Security

Security and safety of data is another benefit that the cloud brings to you. The dedicated environment of the cloud boasts increased security features. With shared hosting, what happens on other customers’ sites can affect your own. Cloud hosting removes this risk and its dedicated environment boasts increased security features. A cloud set-up is loaded with anti-malware software which protects from viruses and other digital threats. Also, all of your business data and records are backed up in case of failure. You get real piece of mind with the security cloud hosting offers.

Automatic Failover

When you’re in the cloud, hardware issues are no longer a major headache. With cloud hosting, you have access to automatic failover. If any piece of hardware should run into issues, your server will automatically migrate to another hardware node in our highly-redundant cluster. This helps to create a fully available, down-time free environment.

Live migration

Live migration is another big benefit driven by cloud hosting and helps to improve the end user experience. Live migration allows hardware maintenance and updates or upgrading of the servers without causing any downtime.