Since its inception, cloud technology has changed how most organizations deal with various facets of business operations. Whether it is about hosting business applications or sensitive data on the cloud, they rely on cloud service providers to make things easier for them. This is comparatively more cost-effective than setting up an on-premise IT infrastructure, including servers, hardware, and more. This can be considered one reason behind the fast pace of cloud adoption across the globe.
However, the availability of the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) distribution model makes it dubious for some business owners to understand how the cloud works. IaaS allows organizations to subcontract a large portion of their IT infrastructure (including disk capacity, authorized cloud access, data security, etc.) to the cloud service provider. As a result, data protection and business continuity, which were earlier accessible to large organizations, are now available to the masses. This is where the concept of business continuity after switching to the cloud.
Here, we will cover business continuity in the cloud in detail.
What is Business Continuity?
By definition, business continuity refers to the steps involved in planning and preparations to ensure that an organization can continue with its critical business functions during a crisis. Here, the term ‘crisis’ refers to situations that can affect normal business operations negatively and lead to the initiation of a business continuity plan. These include:
- Hardware failures
- Power outages
- Cyberattacks
- Natural disasters
- Global pandemics
Why is Business Continuity Important?
Irrespective of the size and scale of your business, ensuring business continuity is essential, and it goes beyond just planning for survival during a disaster. It is quite important because:
- It can give you a competitive edge over business rivals with no such plans. In cases where the entire industry becomes a victim of a disaster, your business will be positioned not just to survive but leverage the emerging opportunities during such disruptions.
- Your workforce continues to have high morale, knowing that the company is more likely to continue the operations regardless of what happens, ensuring job security.
- It will also benefit the external stakeholders, such as subsidiaries, suppliers, and business partners, even when your business faces tough times.
- The failure of businesses resulting from inadequate risk management plans has made business continuity assurance more prominent.
Main Parts of a Business Continuity Plan
Next to knowing the importance of business continuity, you need to understand that it requires a plan and process. While the exact procedure to ensure business continuity may vary from one organization to another, here are its five crucial parts:
| Parts of a Business Continuity Plan | Description |
| Leadership and responsibilities | Involves a team of senior management staff to make decisions to allocate the required resources for the development of a risk management plan |
| Risk assessment | Involves identifying things or situations that can be a potential threat to the business |
| Risk mitigation | Involves designing and implementing mitigation strategies once the potential business risks are identified |
| Continuity strategy | Involves detailing the specific procedures to be put in place to help the business recover from disaster-type events |
| Testing, implementation, and improvements | Involves testing the procedures developed to check their effectiveness |
What to Consider For Your Business Continuity Plan?
While putting a business continuity plan in place, it is quite crucial to consider several business-related aspects, such as:
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Size of your company
Considering the company size helps determine the scope of your business continuity plan.
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Deployment of IT infrastructure
This involves enlisting the hardware, software, and other technical resources to strengthen your business continuity plan. If you depend on a cloud service provider for business continuity, you need to know the strategies they follow to put the system back on track after a disaster strikes.
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Budget
The budget allocated for business continuity during the tough times should be adequate to cover the core business activities without causing a hindrance to the rest of the organization.
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Standards
You can benefit from utilizing globally recognized standards for a business continuity plan based on your industry and the availability of required resources.
What to Look for in a Cloud Hosting Provider?
As detailed above, your business continuity plan and resilience to deal with disasters depend on the cloud hosting provider you hire. This implies that selecting a cloud provider is a crucial business decision. Therefore, it is essential to perform due diligence on renowned cloud service providers before choosing them.
The best in this industry offer 24×7 support and data security and a business continuity plan to ensure uninterrupted software or data access. Switch to Verito Technologies for the best-in-class cloud services. Contact us today at – 1-855-583-7486.
