You’ve migrated to the cloud, but what’s your Plan B?…
The take-up of cloud services has been huge, spurred on by the COVID-19 crisis and a rapid upward trajectory when it comes to cloud adoption rates, development, and spending. But when things go wrong, who you gonna call?
SOME QUICK (AND SCARY!) STATS TO ADD A BIT OF PERSPECTIVE…
By 2025 it is estimated there will be over 100 zettabytes of data stored in the cloud (that’s 100 trillion gigabytes!!), representing over 50% of all data storage and a 100% increase since 2015.
In 2021, cloud data centres will process 94% of all workload.
The largest data centre, Citadel in Nevada is currently over 1.3 million square feet and when complete will stretch over 7.2 million square feet of server space.
Google Drive is the most used storage service with well over a billion users.
China’s cloud infrastructure spend in 2020 grew to $19 billion!
They’re all big numbers by anyone’s measure!
REMEMBER WHEN…
It wasn’t that long ago when software was installed locally on your PC, typically by a local expert who knew what they were doing and knew you and your business. You bumped into them at the supermarket, or your kids played sport together; maybe you shared a beer together on a Friday night. There was this relationship thing happening and if you needed help you picked up the phone and you got just the support you needed, efficient and timely.
NOW WHAT?
So, you’ve followed the flock and moved to the cloud, you’re accounting, inventory, sales, CRM, manufacturing, Point of Sale, just to name a few. Nothing wrong with that and you’ve saved a bunch, but what if things go wrong? Do they go wrong?
“Australian Federal Police investigates ASC subsea cable cut off Perth”
The Australia-Singapore Cable (ASC) was cut on August 1 “about 18km from Perth landing station.” Whilst it’s still under investigation, it was reported that a container ship dragged its anchor in wild weather having anchored within Perth’s cable protection zone.
Did you know, there are more than 400 undersea telecommunications cables connecting the world. Every few days one of them is cut. In almost every case the damage is accidental or an act of nature. The most likely causes, in descending order are underwater earthquakes, rockslides, anchors and fishing boats.
Things can go wrong, particularly if your data is located on the other side of the world!
SO, WHAT IS YOUR PLAN B?
First, who do you call if something is not working as it should?
We see this issue pop-up periodically, and sure, life in the cloud is more robust, but sometimes things still go wrong, and you need to have a plan of action. Your Plan B.
Ah, you call the call centre…oh, but so is everyone else. You can send them an email… support@waitforananswer.com and join the queue along with everyone else…but that doesn’t tell me how long before my staff can get back to work and I can get my products out the door. Or hang-on, do I really know where the problem is in my integrated, eco-system, thing-a-me that I’ve got?
REMEMBER WHEN?
Yep, that can be a good start. Despite all the cloud has to offer, local support still has a place in your business, so don’t lose track of this as an option.
Your local support can build you an action plan, your plan B. It might involve backup of data or caching local data (if this is supported) to re-sync when things come right. It might be knowledge of the outage and a simple workaround or maybe they have inside knowledge of what exactly is going on and the expected outage period so you can plan ahead and keep your customers informed.
In this global eco-system of wiz-bang solutions, don’t forget local, it still has a place and local can’t hide when things go wrong. Identify where your local fits into your business contingency plan and how to find them.
Just because you can’t see the cloud, don’t get complacent. You, your business, your staff, still need a Plan B.