The first step in effectively using cloud computing solutions as a data backup and recovery tool is to make sure you’re in a position to take advantage (a financial advantage) of using the cloud. For example, you may have paid for your backup infrastructure long ago, but if you were to now shift to a cloud computing backup model, you would be spending new money rather than merely paying for ongoing support. If a cloud service can get its price close to your ongoing support costs, you might want to consider the cloud as an option.
We always suggest to our clients to start with non-critical applications, and move up the stack as you gain experience… In fact, the best way to go is to Cloud-source stuff you don’t want to do, like backups, or more specifically, desktop backups.
In fact, we have several good solutions for backup and recovery from large accredited vendors. One thing to remember though, it’s not about the backup, but about the restore, so we also recommend that you truly validate your RTO against cloud backup solutions.
Thoughts? How are you using the cloud for backup and more importantly recovery?
