Cloud computing, which refers to the delivery of computing resources and services over the internet, can offer many benefits for BCP, such as scalability, flexibility, cost-effectiveness, and security. Here's how you can leverage cloud computing for BCP and what best practices you should follow.
What critical business processes and data need to be protected and recovered in the event of a disruption? These may include your customer-facing applications, your internal communication and collaboration tools, your financial and operational records, and your regulatory and compliance data. Also, assess the impact of losing or compromising these processes and data on your business objectives, reputation, and legal obligations.
The question is, what keeps the business running and allows the organization to continue to deliver on its mission. What business processes support that? What applications do the processes use to do those things that keep the business running. How does the business process access each application? Where does each application reside - (on the PC? a local server? a in house data center? in the cloud?). Where does the data each application needs reside? What are the inputs to the application and where do they come from? What other data does the application touch? It is important to understand the end to end picture in order to design a recovery strategy that is effective.
Cloud computing is simply software running on someone else's computer in someone else's data center. As such, it is a supply chain dependency, with also a potential dependency on internal infrastructure (data circuits, routers, ssl certificates, VPN tunnels). It is NOT a magical elixir that somehow ensures resilience. Multiple cloud service vendors have had outages lasting from hours to weeks. In fact, in many cases cases, a cloud offering is an unmitigated single point of failure. So when the cloud vendor has an outage, the impacts can be severe. During the Kronos outage in 2021, an outage that lasted for 5 weeks, the company told customers to implement their contingency plans!
There are three main cloud service models: software as a service (SaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), and infrastructure as a service (IaaS). Each model offers different levels of control, responsibility, and customization for the cloud user. SaaS provides ready-made applications that you can access through a web browser, while IaaS gives you access to virtual servers, storage, and network that you can configure and manage yourself. Choose the cloud service model that best suits your business requirements, budget, and technical skills.
Evaluate the cloud provider's reliability, availability, security, and compliance standards. Look for a cloud provider that has a proven track record of delivering high-quality service, minimizing downtime, protecting data from unauthorized access or loss, and adhering to relevant regulations and industry standards. Review the cloud provider's service level agreement (SLA), which defines the terms and conditions of the service, such as the performance, availability, and support guarantees, as well as the roles and responsibilities of both parties.
SaaS requires that you look at the providers overall risk management. In a sense they are a supplier and need to be vetted to make certain that they have implemented the level of risk management that you would require if this was an internal application including privacy, information security and recoverability. IaaS simply means that you have put your "hardware" in someone else's data center because they can provide a more hardened infrastructure than you can internally. You still need to have a strategy to recover or resume those services you place there. PaaS is similar to IaaS in terms of what you need to support and recover. Being in the "cloud" does not eliminate the need for recovery strategies.
Observing the shift towards remote work underscores the criticality of choosing the right cloud service model. SaaS's ease of use supports non-technical teams, while IaaS and PaaS offer customization crucial for tech-driven companies. Amidst rising cyber threats, a provider's commitment to security and compliance is paramount. The recent surge in data breaches calls for rigorous evaluation of a cloud provider's SLA on security standards. Opting for a cloud service that aligns with these considerations is vital for operational resilience and data integrity in today's digital age.
Design your backup and recovery strategies based on your recovery point objective (RPO) and recovery time objective (RTO), which are the maximum acceptable amount of data loss and downtime for your business. Test your backup and recovery strategies regularly to ensure that they work as expected and meet your RPO and RTO goals. Also, update your backup and recovery strategies as your business processes and data change over time.
The increasing frequency of cyber-attacks highlights the urgency of robust backup and recovery strategies. Defining RPO and RTO is not just a technical necessity but a strategic imperative in safeguarding business continuity. In light of recent ransomware attacks, a best practice is to adopt a 3-2-1 backup strategy: keep three copies of data, on two different media, with one offsite. Regularly testing these strategies ensures preparedness and resilience, while adapting them to evolving business needs and technologies mitigates future risks efficiently.
This means taking advantage of the cloud's features and capabilities to enhance your resilience, performance, and efficiency. For example, you can use load balancing, auto-scaling, and failover mechanisms to distribute your workload across multiple servers, regions, or zones, and to automatically adjust your resources according to the demand and availability. Encryption, authentication, and authorization can also be used to secure your data and access in the cloud. Monitoring, logging, and auditing tools can track and analyze your cloud activity and performance, and to detect and respond to any issues or anomalies.
The shift to remote work due to the pandemic has spotlighted the critical role of optimizing cloud infrastructure. Best practices like utilizing load balancing and auto-scaling not only ensure operational efficiency but also adaptability to fluctuating workloads, a necessity in today’s dynamic environment. Implementing robust security measures like encryption and monitoring is paramount, as the surge in cyber threats exploits vulnerabilities in hastily expanded remote access. Regularly auditing cloud infrastructure for performance and security compliance emerges as a best practice, aligning with the accelerated digital transformation.
Your staff should be familiar with the cloud service model and provider that you have chosen, the backup and recovery strategies that you have implemented, and the optimization techniques that you have applied. Your staff should be aware of the potential risks and challenges of using the cloud for BCP, such as data breaches, service outages, vendor lock-in, or legal disputes. Provide your staff with clear guidelines, policies, and procedures on how to access, use, and secure the cloud resources and services, and how to report and resolve any problems or incidents.
Your BCP should remain relevant, effective, and aligned with your business goals and needs. Evaluate your BCP performance and outcomes, such as the frequency, duration, and impact of disruptions, the success rate and cost of backup and recovery, and the feedback and satisfaction of your customers and stakeholders. Monitor the changes and trends in your business environment, such as the emergence of new threats, opportunities, or regulations, or the evolution of your customer expectations. Finally, make the necessary adjustments or improvements to your BCP, such as adopting new cloud technologies or services, modifying your backup and recovery strategies, or updating your staff training and education.
Simple piece of advice (based on a real case discussed just last week): 1. You set your RTO to 2 hours and got the data/ application on a cloud through a service provider. This is when the provider's server (where you are hosted) fails, it would be recovered in 2 hours. But if the disaster is big, and the whole data center is gutted, does the provider have another datacenter that would have you up and running in 2 hours? What kind of tests does the provider conduct? Does the provider operate a certified BCMS? Please ask these questions and understand your real BC capabilities while leveraging cloud for BC/ IT DR.