Object Storage For Disaster Recovery with Jim Jones

Jim Jones from 11:11 Systems discusses the evolving landscape of disaster recovery (DR) and how object storage plays a crucial role in modern strategies, particularly in the face of increasing ransomware attacks. He emphasizes that traditional DR concerns like fire and flood have been overshadowed by the growing threat of ransomware, which has become a global issue. Attackers now target backups, attempting to exfiltrate and delete them, making it essential to have encrypted, immutable backups. Jones stresses the importance of a layered approach to resilience, combining active defense, well-architected recovery strategies, and regular testing of backups to ensure they are functional when needed.

Object storage, according to Jones, has become the preferred solution for modern backup and disaster recovery due to its inherent immutability, scalability, and cost-effectiveness. Unlike traditional storage methods like tape or disk, object storage abstracts the underlying hardware and distributes data across multiple locations, ensuring durability. He highlights that hyperscalers like Amazon S3 offer exceptional durability by replicating data across multiple zones, making it a reliable option for large-scale disaster recovery. Additionally, object storage is cost-efficient, especially for backup workloads that involve many writes but few reads, making it suitable for cold storage tiers like Amazon S3’s infrequent access or Azure’s cold tier.

Jones also explains how object storage can be integrated into both on-premises and cloud-based DR strategies. He advises using on-premises object storage for initial backups of critical workloads like VMs and databases, while leveraging cloud storage for off-site copies. This hybrid approach ensures that data is protected both locally and remotely. He also touches on the flexibility of object storage in edge environments, where backups can be regionalized or store-specific, and how hyperscaler clouds can serve as a secondary data center for recovery in case of a major disaster. Ultimately, Jones underscores the importance of having a comprehensive, scalable, and tested disaster recovery plan that leverages the strengths of object storage.