They say that lightning never strikes twice in the same place, but if it strikes your data center, would you be okay? VMC Solutions Architect Chuck Hobart shares his insights on cloud computing as a strategy to disaster management and mitigation for data availability.

“With the evolution of cloud computing, a lot of companies that previously could not afford disaster recovery and business continuity facilities (“warm sites”) can now engage that support without having to pay for a backup facility. Most of the large cloud providers have existing Data Centers in geographic environments that allow them, as a service to the customer, to provide backup and recovery, which translates into huge benefit and added value for the customer. Instead of them having to build a facility that they won’t use unless they have a disaster, they can now get that benefit for a reasonable price.

A real-life example took place in the aftermath of the devastating March 2011 tsunami and earthquake, in Japan. Despite absolute devastation to facilities, many companies in Japan had robust cloud data management systems, making their data safe, despite the loss of local data facilities. In a call I had with Amazon shortly after the disaster, about the state of data management in Japan, they reported an impact but said that it was minor, and that they were up and running, and had no data losses, whatsoever. That is great news, and it shows the level of design and understanding that Amazon has for their data center infrastructure and architecture. I also asked them how long could the data be protected on generator power, and learned they can go about 48 hours on what they have in the tank. Fuel delivery is kind of a problem, so Amazon looked at the process of setting up helicopter delivery of fuel. Because the roads were so torn up, fuel trucks couldn’t make deliveries until power was restored. Amazon has a functional disaster recovery plan that served them very well. That’s one of the things that we look at very closely as part of the VMC assessment and vendor selection processes.”

Ensuring your data is safe and accessible is one of the most critical components to consider in designing your data management program.  What protections do you have in place, just in case Mother Nature does catch you by surprise?

Contact Chuck Hobart by email at chuckh@vmc.com or 877-393-8622