The Location of a Disaster Recovery Service Provider’s Data Centers

the location of a disaster recovery service provider data centers
Disaster Recovery

While there are several important aspects of disaster recovery and backup solutions, a service provider can really only be as good as its data centers. Other aspects, such as support, availability, and integrity are all essential for a good disaster recovery service provider, but if its data center is insecure, then it ultimately has no backbone.

Businesses choose disaster recovery and backup solutions because they understand the risks of data loss and business downtime. First and foremost, businesses think of their geographic location and the type of natural disasters that can happen there. Events such as floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, and earthquakes are all good reasons to outsource your data backup.

But what good would this be if your disaster recovery service provider had a poorly located data center? They would essentially be at as much risk of your business in terms of power outages and other disturbances.

A recent LinkedIn article explains why it’s important to consider the geographic location of data centers when choosing a disaster recovery service provider:

“It’s important to consider whether a DRaaS provider has a secure data center that’s located somewhere without any geographic hazards (e.g., on an earthquake fault line or in a tornado-prone area). Also, consider whether the data center employs redundant networks, communication links, and power supplies, and whether it has adequate fire suppression mechanisms.”

Of course, it’s important to consider this factor before committing to a service provider. But if you discover that your service provider’s data center is in an unsafe area, it should immediately throw up a red flag – again, stressing how important it is to inquire of the location of a disaster recovery service provider, no matter how credited they are.

At AE Technology Group, we boast a guaranteed 99.9% uptime, most of all because of our geographically distributed data centers. We utilize Tier 4 data centers in different areas so that your business’ data is as secure a possible.

If you would like more information about disaster recovery and backup solutions, contact us.

Disaster Recovery and Backup: Make New Technology Work for You

A 2012 study done by Gartner found that business continuity was the number one reason for a business to decide on virtualization.

This disaster recovery and backup solutions plan should include at least three considerations, which are addressed in this post. It is important to know that almost 75 percent of businesses that virtualized saw measurable improvement in their ability to recover from either natural or man made disasters.

Data is King

If you need a reason to think about virtualization for your business, keep in mind that data is king. Machines can be restored and applications reinstalled, but care is a requirement for data. Without the data, you could be up and running with nothing to do.

Data protection is a top priority. It must be safe from destruction and loss, which allows for quick recovery after a disaster. The care you give to data will determine the survival of your small business. Virtual storage plays a vital role in data preservation.

Plans for Infrastructure

Take a good look at your hardware and decide how your business could survive if this hardware / server structure experiences damage of any kind. Server virtualization shortens restoration time to the maximum of four hours because most of the work is done offsite – by someone else. This means you don’t have to rebuild any servers, applications or operating systems.

Each server is an independent information container, which can easily be up and running without intense work. It takes only a small collection of tools to convert physical hardware to virtual machinery that will be able to take the place of servers if they become non-functional. This needs to be part of your plan for business continuity under adverse conditions.

Consider a Consolidation

Consolidation is a term that means doing more with less. You could be running more virtual machines (VM) on less servers. This allows you to streamline your business recovery and follow up with a standard plan that you will always use in any disaster situation.

When you decide to take action, contact us to get a better understanding of the risks you must consider: floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, seasonal bursts of traffic to your website. Only then can you put a plan in place to deal with those potential risks. There are more benefits of virtualization, but these are the ones to consider before making a decision.