Cloud providers generally have stricter measures in place than an SME can implement themselves in order to protect their client’s data. Cloud providers will also update this protection on a regular basis.

The backup processes with a competent cloud provider will also protect your company against potential data loss.

So, although the cloud is not inherently more (or less) secure than on-premises IT systems, cloud-based IT systems are generally more secure.

Now that most companies are working in the Cloud at least to some extent, it’s more important than ever to have Disaster Recovery and Backups in place. In the event of a catastrophic data loss, Disaster Recovery allows an organisation to restore their services with minimal disruption.

Without a Disaster Recovery plan and replication of systems and data at a different location, there is a genuine risk of significant data loss and serious consequences for the continuity of business operations. In the worst cases in can lead to business failure.

If you use a click and buy service from companies like Amazon, Azure or some others such as OVH, you need to be sure you know how to pin the infrastructure together to give yourself the best chance of recovery should a disaster happen.

If you are wondering what the differences are between the different technologies available we have written an article on AWS vs Azure vs Independent here…

A real-life example in 2021

A fire at a major datacentre resulted in many organisations losing data and caused major disruption to operations across both the UK and the world. Some companies had their data stored and backed up in the same facility, all original data and backups were then destroyed by the fire.

Lessons about data security and recovery were learned but in the most painful manner and sadly came too late for some organisations.

Good Cloud providers will work with you to ensure that you are not exposed to this unnecessary risk.