FDA tests internal cloud for disaster recovery

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is looking at using an internal (or private) cloud to manage disaster recovery.

In early testing, Joe Klosky, a senior tech adviser at the FDA, was able to successfully restart applications and services within 45 minutes onto other, differently configured servers in their environment without issues using Cassatt Active Response, not people or outsourced services.

Klosky notes:

"An internal cloud approach means that we do not have to pay for costly service contracts with outsourcers, nor do we have to dedicate rooms full of servers to sit idly by just in case of a serious problem."

This successful FDA testing of internal clouds comes on the heels of a hard-fought debate over whether private clouds are even legit. Everyone from Dell and IBM to a host of analysts and experts have weighed in, both for and against the idea.

If Cassatt and other advocates for internal cloud computing got it right, disaster recovery solutions today don't need to duplicate dedicated servers as back-ups or use high-priced, outsourced services that promise to get you back online within a certain time frame, at least for certain classes of apps. Instead, an internal cloud computing disaster recovery approach gives companies the option of putting resources sitting in their data centers to good use while accomplishing the same results.

Find out more about the FDA's disaster recovery results here.

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