Ensuring Your Data Continuity with Geo-Redundant Storage

How is your business protecting its data? Are you backing everything up in the cloud? This is a good start but even the cloud has vulnerabilities. If the power goes down can you still access the cloud?

Sometimes even a backup power source isn’t enough to ensure data access. This is when it pays to turn to geo-redundant storage. Not sure what it is? We’re going over this along with the crucial benefits of geo-redundant storage.

A Quick Look at Geo-Redundant Storage

Can your business operate without data? When the answer is no, data redundancy is a priority. You’re backing everything up and using cloud storage solutions, everything should be great. However, what happens if a disaster affects both your physical and data storage locations? Regardless of how many backups, you still can’t access your data.

Geo-redundant storage (GRS) works to prevent this issue. This solution stores your data in secondary locations with distinctly different geographic features. Still feeling a little confused> Here’s a simple example.

Your business is located on the Gulf Coast, along with your cloud service provider. However, your geo-redundant storage is based in the Midwest. This way, if a hurricane knocks the power out along the Gulf Coast, your business can still access its data stored in the Midwest. In other words, your data is always available even if your other storage solutions are down.

Crucial Benefits of Geo-Redundant Storage

We’ve touched on some of the critical benefits of geo-redundant storage. Primarily, continual access to data regardless of what’s going on at your business’s physical location. However, sometimes it helps to take a bit of a deeper dive into the advantages especially if you’re still on the fence.

Support Disaster Recovery Plans

Your business probably has a robust disaster recovery plan (DRP). If not, what are you waiting for? Extreme weather events are on the rise and don’t forget about human error. Eventually, something is bound to go wrong and this can leave your business without any data.

Including geo-redundant storage in your DRP is an effective way of ensuring your business data is always available when a natural or manmade disaster hits your business.

Boost Cybersecurity

Hackers are relentless and seem to be interested in just about any industry. If your business stores data, even customer email lists, hackers are probably searching for a way into your network. Your industry may even be required to use GRS to meet regulations and cybersecurity compliance standards. The healthcare industry is an example of when GRS solutions may be a requirement.

Since the data is being stored in another geographic location it’s harder for hackers to access the information. Geo-redundant storage comes with stringent data protection protocols. Simply put, GRS helps ensure unauthorized personnel can’t access sensitive data like patient healthcare information or personal financial details.

Improve Performance

Latency speeds are key. You don’t want to sit around waiting for data to eventually load. You need the statistics sooner rather than later. Since you’re storing your data at a completely different geo-location, slow access speeds are probably a top concern.

Don’t worry, GRS isn’t going to slow your business down. The storage solution is designed to boost performance, not drag it down. You can easily take steps to optimize your business network so latency speeds are never an issue.

Various Types of Geo-Redundant Storage

You’re not limited to only one GRS solution. This makes it a little easier to find one that’s a perfect fit for your business needs.

• Locally-redundant Storage (LRS) is the most cost-effective but durability can be an issue. Your data is only stored in one region so if a disaster happens you may be out of luck. LRS is usually only ideal for businesses with limited data needs.
• Zone-redundant storage (ZRS) stores data in three zones but all are in the same region. This gives you a little more security since you have three copies of your data in zone-redundant storage. However, if a disaster hits that zone, your data is probably going to be inaccessible.
• Geo-redundant storage (GRS). This is often considered middle-tier data storage. Your data is stored three times in a secondary location and three times in an LRS zone. So, if the LRS zone goes down, your data should still be accessible in the secondary location.

The two other primary types of geo-redundant storage are geo-sone and read-access. These two options provide more robust storage options but they also come at a higher price. Picking the right GRS solution can be tricky so think about your business’s data needs.