According to Flexera's 2021 State of the Cloud Report, Azure adoption increased from 63% last year to 73% in 2021, with an additional 11% of businesses experimenting with Azure. Running parallel with rising adoption rates are new risks and threats requiring additional layers of data protection. To combat ransomware, security breaches, accidental deletion, and cloud outages, MSPs need a comprehensive business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) solution. Keep reading to see how best to ensure protection and recoverability of data in the Azure public cloud environment.
How Much Can You Rely on Microsoft for Recovery?
Unfortunately, not much. A large percentage of channel partners are choosing Microsoft Azure as the foundation for their digital transformation because it can significantly cut costs, reduce complexity, and boost productivity. The business benefits of hosting your infrastructure and applications in the public cloud can be a game-changer in terms of gaining new capabilities, but it's not an all-in-one solution.
While Microsoft is responsible for network and data center security, MSPs are responsible for protecting applications, data, and endpoints within Azure. Similar to Microsoft 365, Microsoft has uptime SLAs surrounding its services, but not the actual data stored within them. This is why a robust, feature-heavy BCDR solution is such a vital piece of the total picture. Businesses need complete protection of their workloads and it's up to MSPs to provide it.
Just Like Death and Taxes, Failure is Inevitable
Hardware fails, software fails, and people fail. It's just part of the deal when it comes to technology and it's the whole reason backup and disaster recovery exists (thankfully!). If you're still thinking 'it won't happen to me,' you need to remember that in Azure's public cloud, you're not in charge. In March 2021, Azure and other Microsoft 365 services went down for about four hours due to "an issue with a recent change to an authentication system," according to Microsoft. Just three weeks later, another Microsoft outage occurred that once again affected Azure and other cloud services. This time it took almost five hours for the problem to be fully mitigated and the issue was caused by an unexpected increase in DNS traffic.
What's your plan for when Microsoft Azure goes down again? Some MSPs may choose to rely on Microsoft Azure backup solutions, but that presents new risks. With data, workloads, and backup all in the same private cloud, you're risking data availability and your ability to meet competitive SLAs in the event of a cloud outage. Best practices make the case for separating your backups and disaster recovery tools from the infrastructure at risk for failure. The chances of one system going down are much higher than both going down at the same time, and with the right solution, business continuity will be almost instantaneous.
Seamlessly Virtualize Azure VMs with Hardware-free BCDR
Optimally, MSPs need to provide full virtualization and VM export for immediate failback to protect and recover clients' Azure data. By sending data directly to the cloud, rather than a local appliance, MSPs can provide near-instant RTO without any fear that both the production infrastructure and your backups will be unavailable. Having Azure data in a separate location could be the difference between clients surviving a cyber incident or losing their livelihood.
Axcient x360Recover Direct-to-Cloud (D2C) for Microsoft Azure frees MSPs from the risks of relying solely on Microsoft backup with low management overhead, security, and ease of use. Using Axcient's proprietary Chain-Free backup technology, MSPs can provide full virtualization and VM export to Protect Everything™ running in Azure. Unify client protection across on-prem and Azure workloads with a flat, simple, per-device pricing structure that ensures profitability and includes unlimited storage and retention. D2C for Microsoft Azure gives MSPs and their clients the full economic promise of the cloud, security-first capabilities, and efficient functionality at half of what competitors charge for backup alone.
"MSPs have great growth opportunities with public cloud-based services, but threats like ransomware put the security and profitability of this business at risk," said Ben Nowacky, SVP of Product at Axcient. "With x360Recover Direct-to-Cloud for Azure, Axcient provides comprehensive third-party protection and rapid recovery, exceptional ease of use and simplified pricing that enables healthy margins – all on a single platform that supports both on-premises and public cloud workloads."
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This guest blog is courtesy of Axcient. Read more Axcient guest blogs here. Regularly contributed guest blogs are part of ChannelE2E’s sponsorship program.
