One of the most common myths about cloud migration is that data is inherently safe and protected from equipment failure, human error, security threats, malware, natural disasters, and more. This is not true. Although cloud databases can provide additional security than on-premises databases, such as off-site storage and data encryption, they are still vulnerable to downtime. The truth is many organizations using the cloud are less protected than they believe. Consider a recent example of cloud outages caused by the heatwaves across Europe.

Google and Oracle customers experience outages

Oracle and Google Data Centers in London recently experienced outages as their cooling infrastructures failed during the region's worst heatwave on record. Both Oracle and Google had to shut down their equipment to avoid further hardware damage or system failures as cooling systems failed. This shutdown led to a loss of services including access to Virtual Machines (VMs) and Compute.

Google Cloud’s Europe West2 Region in London, made up of three zones, experienced a full regional outage for six hours, with the West2a zone experiencing 35 hours of reduced services. 

Oracle’s OCI’s UK South (London) region experienced limited access to Networking, Block Volumes, Compute and Object Storage for up to 22 hours after two cooling units failed.

Many people were surprised to learn that such large Tier 1 data centers would fail under such circumstances. The truth is cloud infrastructure is not immune to downtime and will continue to experience outages for a variety of reasons, so how do you protect yourself and ensure database continuity?

StandbyMP software for the cloud guarantees database continuity 

Standby MultiPlatform (MP) is an enterprise Disaster Recovery (DR) solution that enables users to quickly and affordably implement resilient DR in the cloud for Oracle Standard Edition and Microsoft SQL Server databases. StandbyMP offers a continuously verified, out-of-region warm standby database that is always available and ready to take over at a moment's notice, ensuring minimal data loss, quick recovery, and resilience in the face of any disaster.

Out-of-region replication (standby) is recommended by the majority of Cloud Service Providers as the foundation of best-practice DR. With StandbyMP's low bandwidth architecture, users can easily create and maintain a warm out-of-region standby database in the cloud, benefitting from the added security, low CapEx, and ease of deployment of a cloud-based standby. 

If your critical databases are only protected by backups or in-region types of high availability, take the next step to create a resilient architecture by taking a Test Drive of our product in your own online environment, or requesting a demo from one of our Technical Consultants. 

If you're interested in learning more, you can also visit our DR for the cloud page here, or check out our white paper which details some key considerations before migrating databases to the cloud.

Affordable, easy, continuous database protection

As Disaster Recovery experts for more than 15 years, we have seen a lot in our time, and we know what it takes to keep your world moving forward, whatever the universe has in store. We’re trusted by globally recognised brands and organizations. Nothing should stand in the way of your business moving forward. Interested in learning more or have any questions? Contact one of our team members today! 

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