www.linuxit.com
BUSINESS
CONTINUITY GUIDE
- HOW TO AVOID
DOWNTIME WHEN
MOVING TO THE
CLOUD
www.linuxit.com
BUSINESSES GROW.
TECHNOLOGIES ADVANCE.
MIGRATION TO SOME FORM
OF CLOUD PLATFORM IS
INEVITABLE, BUSINESS
DOWNTIME ISN’T.
Many organisations are turning towards Cloud services
because of the benefits they offer in terms of price,
efficiency, scalability, agility and flexibility by allowing
them to add or remove resources as needed and pay only
for what they use. Businesses cannot afford downtime of
even a few minutes - it is socially not acceptable.
Business continuity is increasing necessary. A
downtime occurrence is not ideal, but damage
to reputation and efficiency are limited when
handled properly. Downtime has been accepted
as a downside of on-premise IT for generations,
but Cloud Managed Service Providers (MSP)
have made the possibility of always-up IT a
value proposition that makes Cloud computing
more attractive.
2
www.linuxit.com
Mike Curtis, Executive Director at LinuxIT, says:
“With Cloud computing, we believe that by outsourcing to an MSP who
will deploy all sorts of business continuity technologies maximum
uptime should be guaranteed. A Service Level Agreement (SLA)
with an MSP should come with the assurance that there will be
minimal downtime when migrating to Cloud. The combined flexibility
of the platform and SLA should improve the sense of security and
encourage more businesses to move to Cloud environments.”
Successfully transitioning continuity to the Cloud to avoid downtime requires a wellplanned approach and thorough understanding of Cloud-based options. Multiple
considerations must also be addressed, including the following Best Practice Linux
Systems Management advice:
1.
2.
Build a Standard Operating Environment. Organisations have their
own particular requirements and standards for system installation and
configuration. Current provisioning methods are able to codify build
requirements in a flexible and repeatable manner. Your Cloud environment
should be set up in such a way as to enable business continuity in the event
of a problem.
Sign an iron-clad SLA which clearly lays out the responsibilities of an MSP in
the event of downtime, including data, back-up and restoration. Overcoming
this challenge depends on intelligent deployment. If critical data moves to
a Cloud, always keep a copy at the local level, either on server or physical
media. Limiting downtime should be a key feature of SLAs and something
your business should demand from your Cloud provider.
3
www.linuxit.com
3.
Have active failover solutions that automatically spins up in the event of
a disaster. Modern data and application servers are virtualised systems
that reside on a virtualised infrastructure. The physical infrastructure
may be in one or many locations. Look for failover features that allow the
simultaneous synchronising of data and applications from one virtual server
to another. If monitoring identifies a possible issue with your IT this enables
the automatic failover device to kick-in and prevent downtime and ensure
business continuity.
4.
Perform risk analysis and evaluate the risks to your organisation in the
event of a Cloud outage. Determine the critical assets of your organisation.
What chances are there that you might suffer downtime? How will it impact
your bottom line? What mitigation strategies or plans do you have in place
to reduce downtime? These are some of the key aspects that need to be
considered and addressed while moving to a Cloud platform.
5.
Understanding how much downtime costs you is important to help you
determine how to approach the migration. Once you have an insight of the
costs related to downtime, you can get a better understanding of further
investment in Cloud infrastructure and resources needed for successful
migration.
4
www.linuxit.com
6.
7.
In some instances having both on-premise and Cloud services can help
avoid downtime as you’re not migrating everything to the Cloud at once.
Retaining some on-premise solutions can offer significant benefits to
organisations. If you need any specialised migration services, you’ll need a
provider like LinuxIT that can offer a solution designed specifically to meet
migration needs, taking a holistic view of all compute resources.
Have a backup plan in case Cloud outage or failure happens, always have a
backup plan. You need to have necessary precautions in place to maintain
your organisation’s processes and reduce the impact in the case of an
outage incident during migration activity.
LinuxIT understand that migrating to Cloud isn’t just about compute; it’s now
part of any bottom-line discussion. Struggles can’t be avoided, but it’s possible
to prevent and overcome. Cloud has become a popular way to host business
applications because it can save organisations considerable amounts of money.
While the Cloud has a lot to offer, the migration process is not necessarily
without the risks and challenges of downtime. Therefore, organisations
increasingly need to look to IT services experts like LinuxIT to help them to
explore areas of IT strategy and provide best practice advice to avoid downtime
when migrating to Cloud.
5
www.linuxit.com
DISCOVER HOW TO
FIGHT BACK AGAINST
VENDOR LOCK-IN
GET YOUR FREE
EGUIDE NOW:
Avoid vendor lock-in:
Take the power back