What is your level of risk tolerance?
No one is immune to a failure or equipment breakdown on a hosted server. It is essential for any organization to fully understand and know its level of risk tolerance.
If a failure or breakdown occurs on the server hosting your web project, what will be the consequences for your organization, your customers, your revenue, your reputation, and even your peace of mind?
This article aims to guide you through this reflection to enable you to anticipate the worst-case scenarios and act promptly in a crisis.
It is not about anticipating all types of risks, but rather identifying the technological means and actions to take to minimize them.
The first question is to understand our risk tolerance. To do this, here are 2 concepts that will facilitate understanding and guide your reflection.
The concepts of RPO and RTO
1. RPO – Understanding the Value of Your Data
RPO (Recovery Point Objective) defines the frequency at which critical and non-critical data are backed up.
Objective: Define the value of our data and the backup frequency
- Which data do you consider critical for your organization?
- How much data are you willing to lose in the event of an incident (e.g., consider the time elapsed since the last backup)?
- How frequently is your data updated (real-time, daily, weekly)?
- Do you currently have a backup solution? If so, how frequently are backups performed?
- Are you able to assign a value to your data to justify the backup frequency?
2. RTO – The Impacts of a Service Interruption
RTO (Recovery Time Objective) defines the time required to restore service, taking into account the amount of data to be restored from the most recent data backup.
Objective: Understand the consequences of an interruption to define an acceptable recovery time
- What is the maximum downtime your organization can tolerate without a major impact on its operations?
- Which services are a priority to restore?
- What would be the financial and/or operational consequences of a prolonged interruption?
- Do you have a business continuity or disaster recovery plan?
3. Reality of Your Hosted Solution
To better cope with the unexpected, you must prepare for it now. The worst situation in the event of an incident is improvisation. Planning means knowing what direction to take to act and restore the situation.
Objective: Evaluate the current capacity to meet RPO and RTO objectives
Do your current systems allow for rapid service recovery (e.g., local and off-site backups, hardware redundancy, replication, or high availability (HA))?
- What technologies are currently in place to manage your critical data and applications?
- Have you ever simulated a data restoration or experienced a system restart following a service interruption?
- Have you defined the minimum distance in kilometers between your primary site and the recovery site?
- Does your infrastructure meet the needs of your current reality?
4. Compliance and Security
The security of your hosted solution must be designed to meet the requirements of your web project at all levels. Geographical, political, and technological contexts must align with your web project’s requirements.
Objective: Ensure the solution complies with your organization’s standards
- Where is your data hosted? Where are your data backups stored?
- How do you manage data security (encryption, access control)?
- Are you subject to specific regulations regarding data backup and protection?
- Are there any legal or contractual requirements regarding data recovery or restoration times that bind you to stakeholders?
- In the event of an incident, is your recovery plan defined with actions for each party involved in service restoration?
5. Solution Review
Each web project has its own technological realities. It is essential to pay particular attention to it to better understand its evolving needs.
Objective: Maintain a technological review plan in harmony with project growth
- Do you have a clear directive regarding the obsolescence of your web hosting solution and its replacement?
- Do you anticipate a significant increase in data volume in the coming months or years?
- How will your availability and resilience needs evolve with the growth of your organization?
- Do you have any upcoming major projects or changes (new services, new infrastructures)?
- What importance do you place on automation in your backup and recovery processes?
We hope these questions will help you identify the specific needs in terms of RPO and RTO for your web project, to better understand your level of risk tolerance.
Schedule your free consultation today.
The objective is to guide you in making the best technological choices for the growth and evolution of your web project and to offer you managed solutions that meet today’s and tomorrow’s requirements.