Leveraging Cloud and Virtualization for Disaster Recovery

Grazed from DataCenterKnowledge. Author: Bill Kleyman.

As the data center continues to become an integral part of any organization, administrators are working hard to find ways to be as resilient as ever. The data center environment is a lot more complex now with many moving parts – all of which are vital to the efficiency foundation of an infrastructure. With cloud computing, more users, and an increase in data – the challenge has become disaster recovery and business continuity. All distributed systems have to be checked and the data points must all be monitored. In working with these more complex data centers, many administrators are turning to the cloud and virtualization to help them create a more robust DR plan.

The reality is this: a well-planned out cloud and virtualization solution can truly help any organization create a more agile environment. There are inherent benefits to working with specific types of cloud models and virtualization platforms. A large part of IT is creativity – that’s why using new types of technologies can help reduce management costs and keep an environment running longer…

The following are some ways that cloud and virtualization can be leveraged for disaster recovery:

• Cloud for replication. Site-to-site replication has become easier with the utilization of both private and public cloud technologies. With better storage systems and more control over the WAN, organizations are able to better replicate their environments. This can be entire virtual machines, specific databases, or just data points. Furthermore, cloud computing has made disaster recovery much more financially feasible for more organizations. Why? The inherent flexibility of the cloud means you can dictate exactly how much downtime your organization can tolerate and where the costs break even. With that, companies who are trying to stay financial conscious are able to design a solution that fits both – the data center and the budget…

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