How Natural Disasters, Like Hurricane Irma, Are Affecting Your Data
If you ask most people about where their data actually is when it goes to the Cloud, they don’t know the answer. The answer is both simple and complicated, and hardly anyone wants to take the time to find out. So, what happens when natural disasters, like Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma, occur? Your data must be safe, right, because it’s “up” in the Cloud? This thought process could not be more wrong, and knowing where your data is, where it lives, and how it travels is integral to your business operations, especially in the wake of natural disasters.
Where Does My Data Actually Live
No, the answer is not in the actual clouds nor is it true that your data is floating around somewhere boundlessly in the stratosphere. When your business decides to remove its onsite servers and opt for the Cloud, your data simply gets moved onto another physical device somewhere else. That somewhere else could be anywhere in your state, country or outsourced around the world. Cloud hosting companies utilize data centers far and wide to run their Cloud virtualization software and their Cloud application. So although your data is not tied to specific servers, your Cloud providers software and applications are.
You may hear many people say that your data is actually stored on the Internet, but the Internet is nothing more than a highway that connects machines to other machines (in essence, it let’s machines talk). Rather, the Cloud runs on a ubiquitous hardware network that is connected and made possible by the Internet. So, in reality, your data literally jumps from machine to machine, living in multiple places at once without having to be tied down. But, it is ultimately tied back to physical hardware no matter what.
Location, Location, Location
When choosing a Cloud provider, the bigger the provider is, the more data centers they have, and the more servers they have. But, when you choose a provider, it doesn’t mean that your data is jumping through every single one of their data centers from New York to China to South Africa. It’s contained to specific centers. And although most people don’t know it, companies like Amazon actually let you choose what data centers you want to store your data in. But a lot of people don’t, and a lot of people don’t know where their Cloud service providers even have these data centers.
In the event of natural disasters, it’s integral to know where your Cloud providers are running their applications from and how that affects your data. In the case of Hurricane Harvey, the state of Texas has over 174 data centers, with 40 of those data centers specifically located in Houston. Technology giant IBM hosts one of their centers there, and reported that during the hurricane, they experienced a few isolated incidents. In Florida, about 100 data centers were at risk during Hurricane Irma, with 30 of them specifically located in Miami.
And, it’s not only hurricanes we need to worry about, but other natural disasters such as earthquakes, fires, flooding, and so on (not to mention human error, virus’, bugs, etc.).
It’s All On You
Knowing how the Cloud works, where your data is, and where the physical locations of your Cloud service providers are located are all on you. It is your responsibility to know your Cloud provider’s emergency plan: where do they host their data, what happens if the power goes down, where do they plan on moving their data in the event of a disaster, and what are their general contingencies?
Being on the Cloud does not make your business or your data impenetrable. Need we recall Amazon’s Cloud disaster back in 2011 when many users had their data permanently deleted?
While being on the Cloud alleviates a lot of the fear of a natural disaster striking your own personal office, it doesn’t mean we don’t need to be vigilant. When it comes to your data and your technology, you always need to be proactive.
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