• Yuriy Yuzifovich, Head of Security Innovation Labs at Alibaba Cloud Intelligence


• 08.04.2021 01:15 pm
Cloud

Whether a company’s migration journey to the cloud is advanced or just starting, we witness more and more enterprises considering a cloud backup strategy in recent years. Cloud backups are secure offsite copies of data that can be stored on remote servers and accessed via an Internet connection. Cloud backups are a great solution for providing additional enterprise redundancy and security, ensuring that important data is available if and when onsite or physical data disasters strike. In light of the recent World Backup Day, Yuriy Yuzifovich Head of Security Innovation Labs for Alibaba Cloud Intelligence shares five reasons why enterprises need to consider cloud backup/protection of their data and business applications. 

1. Using a cloud-based backup for disaster recovery 

A typical use of backups is for disaster recovery scenarios. Here it is important to always ensure that the recovery is possible, as there are a number of cases when backups cannot be effectively restored if certain important metadata is missing. Disaster recovery backups can also be very useful for DevOps teams for advanced, cloud-native digital businesses, as a perfect sandbox and pre-production environment to test the application, since disaster recovery backups can hold a snapshot of both the infrastructure and the data.

2. Cloud backup can protect the workload and important assets
   Accidental data deletion, data integrity corruption, human errors, as well as cybersecurity risks (ransomware) can be effectively mitigated with cloud backups. With a continuous process, cloud backup can be made similar to what Time Machine does for macOS devices, with an ability for an enterprise to go back to any backed-up state and point in time in case of an emergency. 

3. Off-site backup copies
   For enterprises that are now starting their cloud-native journey or for hybrid cloud-based enterprises, off-site cloud backup should be a part of their backup strategy. For cloud-native companies, a backup located in a different availability zone, or sometimes within a different cloud provider can help ensure successful operations in critical, business continuity cases.

4. Moving your backup to the cloud offers elasticity
   In typical scenarios, enterprises would keep a portion of their existing infrastructure in an idle state, that would only be used when there is a surge in operational load. Doing so, means adding significant cost to your infrastructure. Especially for event-driven cyclical businesses, such as the Olympic games as an example, this practice can have a significant impact in the overall cost. Moving to a “frozen” cloud-based backup option, would allow elasticity and flexibility since an enterprise would only pay for the actively used resources, and the idle infrastructure would not consume many resources when not in use. 

5. Cloud-based backups as a way to GDPR Compliance
   With article 32 (“Security of Processing”) of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), enterprises need to have the appropriate measures in place to restore the availability and access to personal data in a timely manner in the event of a physical or technical incident, Additionally, companies should create a process for regularly testing, assessing and evaluating the effectiveness of technical and organiszational measures for ensuring the security of the processing. As such, a cloud-based backup strategy is an essential part of supporting enterprises’ GDPR compliance effort, that can have not only IT but legal and overall business benefits by ensuring the ongoing confidentiality, integrity, availability and resilience of processing systems and services. Additional ways that cloud backups can help with GDPR compliance is its ability to mitigate its possible adverse effects during the potential unfortunate events within 72 hours of any cyberattack (as required), but also the good news, such as the extent to which the impact of a cyberattack was limited because of the appropriate use of high availability backups. 

Cloud backup provides many benefits and levels of data protection that cannot be achieved through other technologies currently available. Having the right backup strategy gives enterprises the ability to remain protected against potential cyberattacks, primary data loss or corruption situations and should be taken into account at all times.