Protect Business in the Cloud with Disaster Recovery, How To?

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Written by Nicki Pereira, Chief Technology Officer of Zettagrid  : Businesses today rely heavily on their IT systems and there are very few businesses that will not be severely impacted by an incident which results in unplanned IT downtime

IT infrastructure, the applications that run on the Infrastructure and the data that is created through the business applications are the essential life force of modern businesses today.

Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity are not new concepts in organisational risk management.

The growth of cloud solutions has created the opportunity for organisations to leverage the cloud to provide them an essential risk management service, independent from their on-premise infrastructure.

However, organisations that have moved their production systems to the cloud are not exempt from planning for an unplanned IT downtime incident. Just as there are disaster recovery plans and processes in place for an on-premise incident, so too should organisations have plans to mitigate the impact an unplanned outage if they’re already operating out of a cloud environment.If their business experiences an outage or needs to recover from a disaster, they can recover quickly and continue operations from their environment in Zettagrid cloud.

Disaster Recovery (DR) is the replication of either on-premises or cloud based production IT systems to a third-party service provider who has the environment, tools and necessary processes to deliver this service.

These tools, services and processes should provide automation, flexibility and effortless management ensuring this service is an extension of the organisations IT platform.

DR for on-premises environments means replicating IT infrastructure residing upon on-premises hardware and software. In the event the on-premises environment becomes totally or partially unavailable, the organisation can then transfer production operations to their cloud based service until such a time as the on-premise systems are restored.

DR for businesses already operating in the cloud comes with its own set of challenges.

Although cloud based infrastructure has greater redundancy, security and availability, service interruptions can still occur. Human error can also disrupt operations and trigger an outage. Organisations must plan for these events.

A survey conducted by Dimensional Research in October 2016, found that 97% of all network outages are due to human error. You can read the report here.

This human factor implies that cloud based environments are at risk even though they provide greater resiliency. The fact is no matter where you house your critical systems the risk of downtime remains and must be mitigated to ensure business operations are not affected by unplanned service interruptions.

DR for cloud environments is possible by implementing geo-redundant replication between production and failover environments.

*This article originally taken from blog.zettagrid.com

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What Your Cloud Provider Should be Protecting You From

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Written by Nicki Pereira, Chief Technology Officer of Zettagrid  : There is a common misconception that the migration of services to a cloud provider means that businesses hand the keys of responsibility over to their new virtual landlord. However, understanding the threats to your business and what your service partner should be making you aware of has never been more important.

The reality facing organisations of all sizes is a lack of resources or expertise around their increasingly complex cloud or hybrid environment. Naturally, most businesses are turning to their providers for both protection and leadership.

When the ‘WannaCry’ ransomware virus affected 200,000 organisations in 150 countries, it acted as a wake-up call to those that were guilty of taking security for granted. Any reputable cloud provider should have the agility to react faster than your business by using the latest advancements in technology to be proactive towards security threats rather than reactive.

Armed with superior knowledge and skills, they should be working with you to make your business more efficient. Collaboration is crucial to securing the support your business needs to thrive. Leaders should start looking at their cloud provider as a research and development team too.

The apocalyptic headlines around the ‘WannaCry’ attack failed to tell the whole story. The reports highlighted how many organisations were neglecting their core responsibilities. For example, regular backups of data that allow you to roll back to the moment before an attack is considered the best protection from ransomware.

Availability

Availability should also never be taken for granted. As we enter a mobile first and always-online digital age, customers have increasingly high, and some might argue unrealistic expectation levels. But, when your business goes offline, don’t expect your audience to wait around patiently until service has been restored.

The inconvenient truth is that any downtime will not only hurt sales but will also damage your reputation. Ultimately, the inability to serve your audience can quickly lead to widespread negative publicity about your brand. When a customer begins to associate your business with frequent downtime issues, your name quickly becomes tarnished.

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” Warren Buffet

Website monitoring can detect and alert you of any potential issues that could be responsible for taking the site offline. Having a proactive rather than a reactive mindset can dramatically reduce the risks associated with any potential website failures.

After years of living in denial, most leaders now nervously accept that it’s no longer a matter of if a cybersecurity breach or attack will happen, but when. An effective disaster recovery plan is crucial to ensuring you remain open for business 24/7 when the inevitable occurs.

Employees have broken out of their cubicles and into open plan offices in a bid to increase collaboration. The days of fax machines and landline telephones are disappearing. The rise of the hot desking means that you don’t even need to sit at the same desk every day.

There is an argument that the traditional desk has already been retired from the office. Gathering spaces are now frequented by the uber cool who can be found intensely staring down at a laptop screen or managing a breakout session while sat on multicoloured bean bags. More info at zettagrid.id

*This article originally taken from blog.zettagrid.com

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Agile IT Infrastructure For Modern Business

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Customers Have Embraced The Digital World

There’s no denying the fact that the digital revolution has had an immense impact on society and business. Digital disruption, as this phenomenon has been labelled, has unsettled the foundational fundamentals of doing business in every industry and in every market.

Customers today are digitally empowered and businesses need to embrace this opportunity and adapt rapidly if they are to survive.

Modern Businesses Need Agility and Flexibility

The digital world has empowered your customers and you should see this as an opportunity to strengthen your business by adapting your IT to the market forces at play. Customers can now source your products and services from a global market with the touch of a button or a click of a mouse.

To rapidly adapt to this new normal, businesses need an IT infrastructure which is agile, flexible and scalable.

Zettagrid’s Virtual Data Center (VDC) is a solution platform built for the modern digital age.

Organisations which need to modernize their IT infrastructure should consider service oriented IT infrastructure models. Commoditising IT services and handing off non-core functions to Zettagrid, a skilled specialist service provider in IT modernisation, will enable you to rapidly evolve your IT and refocus your resources on core strengths and market differentiators.

Rapidly Evolve Your Data Center

The age of digital disruption has created the need for faster IT innovation. Applications and services need to be enhanced and developed at a lightning pace to keep up with user demand and competitor onslaught.

The Zettagrid VDC is an effective, affordable and efficient cloud solution which has been built so you can transform your IT rapidly with effective and efficient cloud based solutions.

Zettagrid’s VDC has the ability to integrate into your existing VMware on-premises solution so you can tailor your modern IT infrastructure to your specific business requirements. You’re able to offer your customers and employees IT services which can be delivered via a public, private or hybrid cloud platform.

The Need For Flexible Data Center That Are Scalable

The key to surviving and thriving in this time of digital disruption is business agility.

Businesses are only as agile as their IT infrastructure allows them to be. To reach the pinnacle of business agility you need a modern IT infrastructure which can deliver on this requirement.

Agility and flexibility have been baked into the Zettagrid VDC offering.

With features such as fully customizable VM sizing and no contracts, Zettagrid gives you the agility you need to deploy new services rapidly without the complexity surrounding cloud costing, networking and security. Zettagrid VDC scales with you as you grow – you only pay for what you need and use.

Modern Infrastructure For Rapid Deployment

A flexible data centre needs modern infrastructure.

At the end of the day, IT’s primary organisational role is delivering relevant information through application services to its stakeholders. Often these application services need to be rapidly deployed and there is no time to procure hardware and software.

To rapidly deploy these application services, you need a modern infrastructure with immediate scalability built on the latest technology such as Zettagrid’s VDC.

Automate, Automate, Automate

Automating is the key ingredient to real agility. By automating repetitive processes business can adapt to change rapidly. Not only does automation free up human resources, a change in an automated process can be implemented and take effect immediately.

Integration is a critical dependency for automation as you need to integrate the moving parts of different systems into a single solution.

At Zettagrid, our mission is to transform organisations through technology and automation.

Leveraging the automation benefits Zettagrid VDC offers, businesses can innovate faster, gain more control over their environment, respond effectively to change, as well as streamline administrative functions and improving business process.

Lay The Foundation For Modern Apps

As stated previously it’s all about the apps. A flexible, scalable data centre built on modern infrastructure with high levels of automation is the perfect platform for delivering modern apps to business stakeholders.

The Zettagrid VDC holds all the crucial elements needed for a modern data centre which has the flexibility and scalability you need built into its core architecture.

It has features other cloud providers struggle to deliver such as VM customisation, predictable billing, reduced complexity and Zettagrid is fully Australian owned and operated.

Zettagrid VDC Has Everything You Need

For organisations who wish to survive the digital age, agility, flexibility and scalability are crucial IT infrastructure requirements.

Look no further than Zettagrid’s VDC which has all of these features and many more.

Discover how you benefit with Zettagrid VDC.

*This article originally taken from blog.zettagrid.com

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IT Disaster Recovery Plan Should Be A Top Priority

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The sustainability of the company’s business is heavily influenced by many factors. One of them is from the information technology (IT) system that runs in a company. IT Division has the duty and responsibility to ensure that information systems and data management are running normally. If the system is in trouble and disrupts the internal and external operational services, then you can imagine the impact that will occur. A Company need to recover as quickly as possible to providing services to clients and customers. Downtime is one of the biggest IT expenses that any business can face.

Cloud Connect Replication from Zettagrid provide you a comprehensive Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) solution. Cloud Connect Replication is an image-based recovery replication solution enabling you to quickly switch to VM replicas in Zettagrid cloud. With Cloud Connect Replication as a part of your wider disaster recovery plan, your business is better prepared and can successfully manage crises if the unexpected happens.

Get Cloud Connect Replication FREE Trial Now! More info at CloudConnectReplication

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