The coronavirus outbreak is affecting the global economy. Almost every employee is using remote tools to complete their work. Thus, there is more pressure on network systems. They have to provide high availability services to these employees. This crisis is putting a lot of strain on the cloud infrastructure. It is testing the limit of the cloud infrastructure. People are using cloud services for completing their work during this crisis. Thus, cloud services have to meet the uptime demands.
What is considered as High Availability?
It is important for cloud providers to provide high availability to their users. This will ensure that important applications and data are available during this crisis. The biggest disadvantage of using cloud technology in the past was reliability. Organizations were worried about system downtime. If your system is down, then you can’t access critical data and applications. Also, on-premises IT infrastructure is not reliable. If you are using legacy systems, then your on-premise infrastructure is actually unreliable. Organizations don’t want to give their control and visibility. Thus, they didn’t want to move to the cloud infrastructure.
This decision was good in 2010. However, you can’t follow the same strategy in 2020. Almost everyone is using smartphones, IoT devices, and SaaS applications. Thus, companies have to depend on their network infrastructure. They are even using their network for delivering their services to the customers. Hence, companies need to ensure that they can always access their critical applications and data. Also, their network should be available to their customers. This will help their customers easily buying the services.
Most cloud providers are offering high SLAs to their users. Thus, this will ensure that your essential services will be always online. Amazon Web Services or AWS is offering up to 99.99% SLA to its users. Microsoft Azure is also offering up to 99.95% SLA to its users. Thus, cloud technology has become more reliable with time.
Importance of Cloud Availability during Crisis
Most organizations don’t think about uptime reliability. If your cloud provider is offering 99.99% SLA, then you are only going to face a downtime of 4 minutes every month. Cloud providers also need to provide reliable infrastructure during the coronavirus crisis. This is their most important test. They have to provide reliable IT infrastructure to companies. If you are working in important sectors like healthcare, then 100% uptime is very important for you. Downtime can also have serious impacts on other businesses.
Even large enterprises can’t deal with a data disaster. However, data disaster is more deadly for small and medium-sized companies. It can force them to shut down. You can lose important opportunities due to this downtime. Also, it will affect the reputation of your enterprise. The revenue loss can be very harmful to your business. However, your customers will also lose faith in your business. If your customers don’t trust your brand, then they won’t work with you. It is almost impossible to win back your old customers.
There are many enterprises that only rely on cloud infrastructure for their application and data needs. If their cloud providers are not providing a reliable infrastructure, then they are at risk of downtime.
How you can achieve high availability?
Cloud providers have to ensure that they are providing a reliable infrastructure to their customers. You have to protect your customers from this crisis. Thus, it is important to build a platform that is secure and stable. If you are using the virtual machines of some other cloud provider, then you are tied with their SLA uptime. However, every SaaS business doesn’t have enough funding to build its own IT infrastructure. Thus, it can be very difficult to meet uptime needs. You need a huge amount of funding for creating these massive facilities. Your scalability will be limited by your existing infrastructure. If you want to increase your computing capacity, then you need to buy a new server for your infrastructure. This is not a problem for large companies like Google or Amazon. However, almost every other business doesn’t have the funding to build these facilities. Also, it is impossible for them to expand these facilities.
Colocation data centers
Colocation data centers are a better option for SaaS companies. These data centers will help them by providing better services. Colocation providers offer better SLA agreements to their customers. Most providers will offer you a 100% uptime SLA agreement. Thus, they are more reliable when compared to cloud providers. Also, they will provide multiple connectivity options to your business. You can use it for accessing different cloud providers. Colocation providers will remove the burden from the SaaS companies. They will ensure that the services and data are even available during the crisis. Thus, colocation providers are a better option during the crisis.
These data centers will also help you in developing business continuity plans. This will ensure cloud availability during the crisis. You can back up critical data in different data center locations. This will help you in protecting your data from the crisis. Also, you can use fault-tolerant systems that will help you in dealing with failovers. Data centers will also help you in managing your critical systems. Thus, it will help you in dealing with human error. Human errors are still the biggest cause of network outage.
Conclusion
The coronavirus outbreak has forced everyone to embrace remote work. Almost everyone is using remote tools for completing their work. Cloud providers have to ensure that they are providing reliable services to their users. They are trying their best to provide reliable infrastructure to their customers. However, Colocation data centers are still more reliable when compared to cloud providers. They will offer up to 100% uptime SLA to your business. Thus, you don’t need to worry about downtime. Also, they will offer various connectivity options to your business. If you are working with colocation providers, then you will also have more control over your data. This is very important for companies that are in the healthcare and financial sector. If you want more information regarding colocation data centers, then you can contact Bleuwire.
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