“With video and audio content on the rise…you have a lot more to store and therefore, that’s going to continually be a problem as we get further on into the next 10 years,” one expert says.
Illustration: Brittany Holloway-Brown, Photos: Adobe Stock
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade whip out your backup redundancy strategy.
Redundancies, backup plans or storage methods for data that allow for systems to remain operational in the event of a failure, are essential in an industry where data breaches, natural disasters, and ransomware incidents remain a threat to business continuity. Jon Kuhn, SVP of products at Delinea, told IT Brew that recent disruptions such as the CrowdStrike outage have highlighted the importance of having redundancies in such events.
“That really caused a tremendous amount of damage due to the fact that it didn’t allow computers to reboot and I think there were very few people that saw that one coming, as wide-scale [as] it was,” Kuhn said.
Kuhn added that having adequate backup systems will remain “critical” for organizations as they continue to increase the amount of data in their systems.
“With video and audio content on the rise…you have a lot more to store and therefore, that’s going to continually be a problem as we get further on into the next 10 years,” he said.
Access control. IT Brew asked Kuhn and Kirkham IronTech CEO and founder Tom Kirkham how to craft a well-rounded redundancy strategy. Kirkham told IT Brew that businesses should have three components in their redundancy strategy: data restoration, disaster recovery, and business continuity.
Kirkham said there are different redundancies to consider for different purposes. Hard drives, for example, are an example of a fault-tolerant redundancy strategy for servers, he said.
“They can be configured in such a manner that if one disk fails…the data is still recoverable,” Kirkham said. “And in fact, if it’s done properly, the user won’t even know.”
At the data center level, Kirkham said redundancy should be considered for the power, heat, cooling, and internet service providers of a facility. He said cloned data centers, which he described as facilities with duplicated data centers, are an example of this type of redundancy strategy.
“The entire data center on one side is cloned over to the other one and they’re designed to be…hot swappable,” he said.
Kuhn said redundancy for account access is an overlooked area among businesses, a factor that some companies struggled with during the CrowdStrike incident.
“An approach for that might be to allow personal computers, then, access on a temporary basis. That might be what we call a break-glass account to get access to a specialized system in a time of need,” Kuhn said. “That’s really only used for emergencies.”
Kirkham said it is essential that businesses periodically test their different backup systems to ensure that they will work as needed in any given event.
“If you’re not testing it and improving it and looking at all your different backup time frames, and thinking about business continuity, you really don’t have a backup or redundancy,” Kirkham said. “You kind of have a wing and a prayer.”
Making the business case for pricier backup options. For IT leaders who need to plead their case for more premium backup equipment or services to stakeholders, Kuhn suggests that professionals showcase the impact downtime can have on their organization. Kirkham said downtime can be quantified as monetary productivity loss.
“How much downtime would be [for] one hour of your call center being offline, or your employees not being able to work?” Kuhn said. “And with that ROI in mind, you start to see where the cost of downtime actually far exceeds what protections you could put in place.”
Kuhn compared the need for enterprises to have effective backup methods to driving with a spare tire on hand.
“Would you drive without a spare tire to save a few dollars?” Kuhn said. “What would be the impact if you were on a lonely road in the middle of the desert when you don’t have a tire there?”
