Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery in Cloud Computing

In many organizations, the primary role of the IT staff is to ensure 99.999% availability of computing resource applications, power, files, networks, and phone systems to name a few.

In this assignment, imagine that you have been hired by the midsized, multinational, BIG-CLOUD company to create and graphically depict a cloud based business continuity plan (BCP) and disaster recovery plan (DRP). Your solution must include details on how the cloud solution of your choice will address three (3) or more high fault items such as user disk failure, server disk failure, network failure, database failure, phone system failure, server power failure, desktop power failure, fire, flood, and malware. (Use the template in Chapter 10 of the text as a reference for the BCP and DRP plan.) Fictitious assumptions and details may be assumed or created for the completion of this assignment.

Write a five to eight (5-8) page paper in which you:

1. Provide a brief background on the company that has hired you and describe its backup and recovery challenges.
2. Describe the threats to its IT data center infrastructure.
3. Create a BCP plan for the high fault items that are being addressed.
4. Create a DRP plan for the high fault items that are being addressed.
5. Create a section in your BCP that addresses the mitigation strategy of your cloud solution in regard to the high fault items listed in the scenario.
6. Create a section in your DRP that addresses the mitigation strategy of your cloud solution in regard to the high fault items listed in the scenario.
7. Discuss the amount of control your organization wants to retain over its data, in relation to moving information to a third party, and data leaving the country or region boundaries. Assume both situations are such that allows for a cloud-based backup solution.
8. Evaluate the pros and cons of your cloud-based backup solution with regards to your organization’s requirements (i.e., flexibilities you gain versus absolute control you lose). Determine whether the pros outweigh the cons.
9. Use at least three (3) quality resources in this assignment. Note: Wikipedia and similar Websites do not qualify as quality resources.