Hybrid cloud environments provide much-needed flexibility for businesses looking to digitally transform their everyday processes. Hybrid cloud backups are one component to greater technological efforts, offering added scalability and security to data storage. As of 2024, 73% of businesses are embracing hybrid cloud solutions, but with these advancements also come challenges.
We’ll cover the best practices businesses should apply when adding hybrid cloud backups, as well as common challenges and components to consider.
What is Hybrid Cloud Backup and How Does it Work?
Hybrid cloud architectures combine on-premises environments with one or more cloud resources, and hybrid cloud backups use this combination to create a more comprehensive strategy for data protection.
Hybrid cloud backups work by having data backed up to on-premises storage devices, such as servers and hard drives, and then saved as a copy to cloud storage. By having data stored in both locations, businesses improve their redundancy and have a backup they can use in the event of a disaster or outage. To ensure both copies are up-to-date, data is synchronized regularly, based on the level of tolerance a business has for lost files as part of their recovery point objective (RPO).
What Are the Benefits of Hybrid Cloud Backups?
Businesses that use hybrid cloud backups can enjoy benefits such as:
- Improved redundancy: Saving a copy of your organization’s data in the cloud means that you have easy access to a backup that can be used during a disaster. This is one of several redundancy measures a business should implement when executing a disaster recovery plan.
- Better disaster recovery: Restoring data from the cloud can help businesses achieve their recovery point objectives (RPO) and recovery time objectives (RTO).
- Scalability: Storage capacity needs are not likely to be consistent from month to month. Having cloud storage as part of a hybrid backup solution means that businesses can easily scale based on their resource needs.
- Cost-Effectiveness: While it can cost more to store data in multiple locations, these expenses far outweigh the average cost of downtime businesses may experience during an outage, data breach, or other type of disaster. Hybrid storage can also be more flexible thanks to the flexibility and scalability of cloud storage, allowing businesses to only pay for what they need.
What Are the Challenges of Hybrid Cloud Backups?
Hybrid cloud backups can provide greater data protection and create more flexible storage options, but there are some challenges businesses may face when implementing a hybrid solution.
Because hybrid cloud is a mix of cloud and non-cloud environments, organizations need to manage complexity to leverage the environments effectively. There may be several different tools, security configurations, and processes to navigate to minimize vulnerabilities and keep backups effective. In fact, 32% of businesses list struggling with migrating workloads when moving to public cloud environments as one of their biggest challenges.
Data can also get fragmented when it spans across on-premises and cloud environments. It’s important that data is organized, classified, and synced properly to avoid issues associated with fragmentation.
Infrastructure security measures from cloud providers can make hybrid cloud backups more secure, but businesses also need to understand their role in keeping data protected in transit and at rest. Organizations should also understand which compliance measures they need to have in place to align with relevant data privacy regulations for their industry or type of business, which can get harder to unify when more environments are added.
Other challenges can include risk of vendor lock-in, lack of necessary in-house skills, and cost management associated with cloud storage and backups. Flexibility is a benefit, but vendor lock-in can make your future options feel rigid. Having someone available who can help you navigate backup options can help you manage costs and keep your options open.
Important Components of a Hybrid Cloud Backup Strategy
The essential components of any hybrid cloud backup strategy will consider the infrastructure used for backups, how data will be synchronized and replicated, where data will be managed, and the security measures necessary to protect data in any state. This can also be part of a larger hybrid cloud strategy.
On-Premises Backup Infrastructure and Cloud Backup Services
Initial backups and local data redundancy can be stored on physical storage devices such as hard disk drives (HDDs) or solid-state drives (SSDs). Long-term archival and offsite disaster recovery can be aided with the use of scalable cloud storage options.
Cloud services should be able to meet your goals for security, scalability, and compliance. If you think your needs may change in the next few years, analyze how easy it would be to migrate data from one provider to another.
Data Replication and Synchronization
For hybrid cloud backups to work effectively, data needs to move efficiently and quickly between on-premises and cloud environments. Replication tools can create copies of onsite data in the cloud for secondary off-site backup purposes. Synchronization keeps each copy current between environments, so if the backup needs to be used, little to no data is lost.
Centralized Backup Orchestration and Management
To make orchestration easier, backups should be managed by a centralized platform. The platform should allow your organization to schedule backups, generate reports, and monitor data replication efforts. This can help streamline the backup process and reduce errors that can make disaster recovery efforts more difficult.
Security Measures and Compliance Considerations
To safeguard critical data in hybrid cloud backups, data needs to be encrypted at rest and in transit. Other robust security measures businesses should implement include multi-factor authentication and access controls. Data backup policies should also comply with relevant policies such as HIPAA, GDPR, and PCI DSS depending on the level of data sensitivity, location of the business, and industry.
Six Hybrid Cloud Backup Best Practices
Establishing a strong hybrid cloud backup strategy with the aforementioned components is the first step in implementation. From there, apply the following best practices to ensure your backups are achieving your business objectives.
1.) Establish RTOs and RPOs
An RPO identifies how much data a business can lose before it significantly impacts their processes or revenue. An RTO describes how much time a business can stand to use to restore critical business systems and processes.
Some organizations can afford to lose a day’s worth of data or more, whereas others would experience major disruptions in business processes if they lost more than a few minutes of data. The same goes for recovery time. Some businesses can go days before getting back to business as usual. Others need to be back up and running in minutes.
Your company’s RTO and RPO will depend on the sensitivity of your data and how much you rely on the workloads to conduct critical business processes. The RTO will dictate the backups’ recovery speed, while the RPO will also determine backup frequency to minimize data loss.
2.) Develop Backup and Recovery Policies
Creating a comprehensive policy around data backup and recovery can help reinforce your approach across your organization. A strong policy should include:
- Backup schedules: What’s the frequency that should be used for data backups?
- Retention periods: How long should data be saved?
- Disaster recovery procedures: Who is responsible for which steps, and what needs to happen in order to restore business processes?
- Testing and validation: How will you ensure your backups are working properly?
3.) Determine Your Data Security and Protection Requirements
Who needs access to which types of data? What other security protocols need to be enacted to protect data?
The sensitivity of your data and regulatory requirements will determine the security measures that need to be used to protect data. This can include encryption standards, access controls, and data transfer protocols.
4.) Evaluate Cloud Backup Providers
Before choosing a cloud backup provider, you should evaluate a few options.
You’ll want to evaluate based on the following questions:
- How well can the cloud provider accommodate future growth? How flexible and scalable is the infrastructure?
- Does the provider offer clear and detailed Service Level Agreements (SLAs) that guarantee data availability and recovery times?
- Which security features are available from the cloud provider, and which need to be implemented by the customer?
- What management and monitoring tools and capabilities are offered?
- What does the pricing model look like? Are there cost savings available for predictable workloads?
- How do people rate customer support? What is their reputation like?
5.) Assess Potential Integration Challenges
Depending on how old your on-premises infrastructure is, you may experience integration challenges with your chosen cloud backup solution. During and after the cloud provider selection process, you’ll need to think about how compatible the systems are, what data transfer requirements look like, and whether you’ll need additional software or other integrations to make syncing and transfer smooth.
6.) Outline Testing and Validation Schedule
Once everything is set up, it’s time to test. A regular testing schedule should confirm that hybrid cloud backups are ready during backup and data recovery scenarios.
Plan how often you want to simulate disasters and the types of scenarios you want to test. This will depend on where your data centers are located, how much redundancy you have, and the level of your data’s sensitivity that you’re trying to protect and restore.
By testing regularly, you can quickly identify deficiencies in your plan and implement additional safeguards before a real disaster.
Exploring Hybrid Cloud Backup Options
Choosing the right hybrid cloud backup solution will come down to how well you understand your specific priorities and needs. If you’re not sure where to start, TierPoint is here to serve as a partner to help you navigate your options. We have deep expertise in designing and implementing hybrid cloud and disaster recovery solutions that work with your existing infrastructure and meet your data storage and compliance needs.
TierPoint is also vendor-neutral and well-versed in integrations, allowing you to achieve greater flexibility when you ultimately select a cloud vendor. Learn more about our hybrid cloud consulting and schedule time to talk to a member of our team. In the meantime, check out this infographic to discover the 13 essential steps to creating an effective disaster recovery plan.
