Think cloud, re-think disaster recovery.

• Position: CLOUD

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Add business continuity to the list of considerations if you're deciding whether to move to the cloud. Using it for even the basic purpose of data backup could significantly improve your organization's ability to recover from a disaster.

While most large companies have a backup strategy, many are not sending their data offsite--or far enough offsite--to mitigate geological or meteorological risks, according to Richard Cocchiara, CTO and managing partner of consulting for IBM's Business Continuity and Resiliency Services. "Cloud gives them the ability to store data someplace remote, store it online, and to typically recover faster than from tape," he recently told Network World.

Cocchiara said that companies with sophisticated disaster recovery architectures and strategies may benefit from the cloud from financial and control perspectives, for example, because they can test cloud disaster recovery more often. These companies, though, often face the challenge of creating an integrated strategy of processes, architecture, and reporting that is necessary to demonstrate their business continuity capability to auditors, he said.

The cloud levels the playing field for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), which are not...