Why Your Cloud Migration Strategy Needs a Strong Disaster Recovery Plan

Migrating critical databases to the cloud is becoming an essential move for businesses seeking to boost efficiency, scale, and performance. According to Markets and Markets, cloud adoption is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.3% between 2021 and 2026. By 2025, Gartner predicts 95% of new data workloads will be hosted in the cloud. However, while the cloud offers significant advantages, migrating critical databases presents unique challenges. Data integrity, availability, disaster recovery, sovereignty, and performance remain top concerns.

Common Myths Around Cloud Migration

There are a few myths surrounding cloud migration that need to be addressed. One of the most misleading is that cloud providers automatically ensure disaster recovery (DR). In reality, no cloud provider can fully guarantee protection against downtime. A solid DR solution tailored to your Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO) is essential, as CSPs typically do not include resilient DR as part of their offerings.

Another common myth is that having “in-region high availability” is sufficient for business continuity. Outages caused by natural disasters or technical failures can affect entire regions, as seen in high-profile cases with AWS, Google Cloud, and Oracle. To protect critical databases, an out-of-region DR setup is recommended.

Effective Cloud-Based Disaster Recovery

Cloud providers like AWS and Oracle offer best-practice guidelines for DR that often involve out-of-region replication. For example, Oracle recommends using Data Guard for multi-regional protection, while AWS suggests creating a remote standby environment to safeguard against regional outages.

Evaluating Your RPO and RTO

Understanding your company’s RPO (how much data you can afford to lose) and RTO (how long your systems can be offline) is crucial when migrating to the cloud. Cloud-based backups alone might not meet the requirements of modern enterprises with stringent RTO and RPO needs.

Achieving Best-In-Class DR with StandbyMP

For organizations seeking reliable DR solutions, StandbyMP offers a robust system for maintaining warm standby databases in separate regions, ensuring minimal data loss and quick recovery. Whether your primary database is on-premises or in the cloud, StandbyMP provides a Gold Standard level of protection.

Cloud migration brings undeniable advantages, but to truly safeguard your critical databases, a comprehensive DR plan is necessary. Solutions like StandbyMP provide businesses with the protection and peace of mind needed to thrive in the cloud.

Learn more about Cloud Migration Strategy and StandbyMP.

BRCCI – Business Resilience Certification Consortium International (www.brcci.org)

We are thankful to the author for allowing us to post this insightful article on our website. BRCCI provides a comprehensive training and certification program in business resiliency, continuity and IT disaster recovery planning:
1. 3-day CBRM (Certified Business Resilience Manager) is a comprehensive, all-in-one, 3-day Business Continuity Planning and Management Training and Certification course which is designed to teach practical methods to develop, test, and maintain a business continuity plan and establish a business continuity program.
2. 3-day CBRITP (Certified Business Resilience IT Professional) is a comprehensive training on how to assess, develop, test, and maintain an information technology (IT) Disaster Recovery Plan for recovering IT and telecommunications systems and infrastructure in the event of a disaster or business disruption. The training provides a step-by-step methodology to ensure a reliable and effective IT disaster recovery and continuity plan consistent with the industry’s standards and best practices.
3. 5-day CRP (Cloud Resilience Professional) This 5-day seminar is designed for professionals seeking expertise in cloud computing and resiliency management. You will gain a comprehensive knowledge of cloud foundation principles, best practice strategies for building resilient cloud environments, and essential cloud continuity and disaster recovery planning techniques.
4. 2-day CBRA (Certified Business Resilience Auditor) It provides 2 days of intensive, Business Continuity Audit training to enable students to determine the effectiveness, adequacy, quality and reliability of an organization’s Business Continuity Program. Students will learn an audit methodology to evaluate compliance of Business Continuity and IT Disaster Recovery Programs with the current industry’s best practices and standards including:

• ISO 22301: Business Continuity Management Systems – Requirements
• NFPA: Standard on Disaster/Emergency Management and Business Continuity Programs
• ITIL: Information Technology Infrastructure Library

For information on the above program, please contact BRCCI (www.brcci.org, 1-888-962-7224).