Yesterday’s online outage across high-profile websites including Twitter and the UK government, has highlighted the need for organisations worldwide to ensure they have much simpler business continuity plans in place, in order to rapidly roll operations back to the time of an incident – says Nasuni, a leading provider of cloud file storage.
Yesterday morning’s event, involving a specialist in optimising websites rather than malign activity, once again raises the possibility that many organisations – particularly those with hybrid working models – could be more at risk of losing crucial workplace data than ever before. This may be to do with IT teams having had less scope in recent months to fully test business continuity plans across their extended and frequently-changing workforces.
Russ Kennedy chief product officer, Nasuni, comments: “Regular outages and ransomware attacks are becoming a fact for global businesses post pandemic. Since many companies with on-premise file sharing infrastructures are tied to system failovers with duplicate infrastructure in their main location or a co-located DR facility, the scope to fully test these strategies has been constrained since widespread hybrid working was adopted. It’s likely that many on-premise storage infrastructures have become even more complex with wider general uptake of cloud applications, as people work away from the office.”
Russ Kennedy contrasts this traditional thinking with cloud native storage’s fast recovery capabilities: “In contrast with on-premise arrangements, cloud native file storage ensures that data is protected in the cloud, and the file system can be reconstituted with uncorrupted data for each virtual appliance locally after an incident – which can be organised in minutes,” he says.
The company also emphasises that with cloud storage all data, shares and client configurations are resident in the cloud, the organisation’s focus can switch to how quickly it’s IT team can reconnect services which can be done in minutes.
Russ Kennedy explains: “Companies around the world have had to show unusual skill and resilience adapting so quickly to hybrid working in lockdown and beyond. But incidents like today’s, show the risks that companies using multiple cloud applications on extended hybrid working models are now running. Cloud native file storage strategies give companies fast recovery times and simplicity of use and workplace testing. As a result, they are making the traditional ‘Achilles Heel’ job of restoration a straightforward task – even in an age of regular outages and increasing hacking activity.”
