Business continuity in today's world is essential

The ability to access your applications and data, even during an outage, can be the difference between calm and catastrophe. Reputational and financial damage are just the start of a domino-effect of potential disasters. Just ask anyone who followed the CrowdStrike security incident.

So how do you plan for it? A disaster recovery (DR) strategy for your infrastructure needs to consider every application and its importance to the business. What’s the maximum time an outage can be sustained? How many minutes or hours of data are acceptable to lose? What’s your cost threshold to achieve this.

This is where Azure has been a game changer. The days of creating a DR strategy with multiple SAN’s, datacentre and resilient networks are long behind us. We can now achieve the same goals in Azure in days or weeks, not months.

Here are a few ways Azure can give you a DR boost:

Azure Site Recovery to the Rescue

Using Azure Site Recovery allows a virtual machine to be spun up rapidly in another datacentre at the drop of a hat, and cheaper than two individual virtual machines too. Capacity reservations are crucial if you need assurance the resource will be available if things take a turn for the worst.

Replicating SQL Services in Other Regions

If you have SQL servers, secondary replicas in other regions can be your best pals. Azure even offers licensing discounts if you plan carefully. So now you can save money while also preparing for a crisis – pass us a pen!

Cross-Site Restore for Your Backup

Backups can be replicated to multiple regions and restored in a DR region using cross site restore if disaster strikes. However, just be sure to plan for the extra costs that come with this safety net.?

Keep Users Connected Using VPN

Deploying a VPN endpoint in another region allows your users to reach your DR network. This can be configured and spun up in hours but remember that it needs to be combined with deploying the VPN profile to users, there needs to be education around when to use it.

On paper, it all looks so simple, but during our own migration to Azure, we know it’s different in the real world. We can achieve a DR infrastructure which outperforms our previous multiple datacentre setup, all at a lower cost and complexity and with the added benefit of no last-minute drives to the data centre to fix storage issues!

As can be seen with the above examples, being in Azure is the first step, but business knowledge, how to create a solid DR plan, and an in-depth understanding of the entire Azure architecture is essential. That’s what will help you weather your next IT storm.

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