So, just how important is operational resilience?
A recent report on Operational Risk, produced by Allianz set out their Risk Barometer for the highly regulated finance sector. From their research, they have ranked the biggest risks as:
When we speak to our customers, they often believe their operational workstreams and associated data are ‘fine because it’s in the cloud’. While their environment may be more secure with a foreign cloud provider, many associated risks have moved rather than been prevented.
In addition, potentially more questions come to light because there are fundamental uncertainties around what this environment is right now and how this may change as another corporate body owns it. So, how sure are you about the following?
How is your Operational Resilience?
Do I know where my data is being held, which exact country, or countries?
Have you been provided with a clear and up-to-date understanding of where your data is physically stored? Is this storage across multiple countries or data centres? Do you have a comprehensive list of all locations where your data might reside? How is this information disclosed to you, and is it regularly updated to reflect any changes in your service provider’s infrastructure?
How easily can I move or retrieve my data, if needed?
What processes allow you to access and export your data from the cloud? Is retrieving data in a usable format easy, or are there technical or contractual barriers that could hinder this? Are there any limitations to your ability to transfer data, for example, export fees, downtime, or service disruptions? What support is available to help you move or retrieve data, and are there SLAs (Service Level Agreements) associated with this process?
Who else has access to my data? Can a regulatory or governmental organisation (maybe from another country) get access without your authorisation?
Who within the service provider’s organisation can access your data, and what are the security measures to prevent unauthorised access? Can third parties, such as contractors or subsidiaries, access your data? How does the service provider comply with various legal and regulatory requirements, including GDPR, the Data Protection Act, and others? Are there any circumstances under which a government or regulatory body, especially from foreign countries, could request or seize access to your data without your explicit consent, and how does the service provider handle such requests?
Have you moved to just one Cloud supplier? If so, what would happen if that supplier cannot deliver their service?
If you have consolidated your cloud services with a single provider, have you assessed the risks of vendor lock-in? What is your contingency plan if your cloud provider experiences service outages, technical issues, or even bankruptcy? Would your operations be significantly impacted if your supplier were unable to deliver their service? Are there clear SLAs, including penalties, in place to address such situations?
If you have data across more than one Cloud platform, what would be the impact of one or more suppliers being unable to provide their service? Are there any interdependencies that could have a far broader impact?
If your data and applications are spread across multiple cloud platforms, what dependencies exist between these platforms? How resilient is your setup to platform outages or failures, and what steps are taken to minimise any risk of a cascading failure across platforms? What are the potential business and operational impacts of one or more of your cloud suppliers being unavailable, especially in terms of data availability, integration, and workflow disruption? Have you considered using multi-cloud strategies, and what safeguards are in place to reduce risks from service interruptions?
So, we’ve identified where your workloads reside as a potential risk to the business. How can we make our business more resilient?
CiContinuity can assist with this through our UK-based Public Cloud and our 25 years’ worth of experience in data security, offering the services and solutions to ensure that your workstreams are safe, available, and recoverable. Firstly, our cloud has a 100% uptime SLA, unlike Azure’s and AWS’s 99.99%, meaning that your data will always be accessible.
In addition, wherever your data sits, on-prem, in a cloud, or multi-cloud environment, CiContinuity can take a copy of essential data and workstreams and securely copy them to our Cloud. This allows us to provide an air-gapped and immutable (WORM) data set, which cannot be affected by cyberattacks, and enables you to recover to your original destination or into our cloud DRaaS platform.
Our services and expertise allow us to help you identify ways to make your cloud instances more resilient, highlight any gaps in recovery plans that might impact how your business reacts to disruption, and finally, provide recovery specialists to be on hand should you suffer any downtime.
This solution is underpinned by our Cloud offering, CiCloud Solutions. We can provide the ideal location for both your primary and backup data. Here are some important take-away facts:
We are located only in the UK, so you always know where your data is.
We have zero egress charges, allowing the flexibility to move and use your workstreams.
Our BaaS service provides a secure location for your hybrid/multi-cloud data.
Our DRaaS service is a PAYG cloud infrastructure, so it is much cheaper and ready to deploy quickly should you need to recover your important data.
If you want to understand more about how we can help you make your data more secure, check out our extensive library of blogs, contact us here, or pick up the phone and speak to one of the team today by calling 01256 378000
Operational Resilience: 5 Powerful Reasons It Matters
1) Minimises Business Disruption: Unexpected events — from cyber attacks to infrastructure failure — can halt operations. Operational resilience ensures that key functions continue with minimal interruption.
2) Protects Brand and Reputation: In a crisis, your ability to respond quickly and effectively builds trust with customers, stakeholders, and regulators. Poor resilience, on the other hand, exposes reputational risk.
3) Strengthens Regulatory Compliance: Many sectors now require clear evidence of operational resilience. A structured approach helps meet expectations from regulators and demonstrate due diligence.
4) Supports Customer Confidence: Clients want reliability. When your services remain stable during disruption, customer satisfaction and loyalty increase, giving you a competitive edge.
5) Enables Long-Term Growth: Resilient organisations are more agile, better prepared for change, and capable of capitalising on new opportunities without being derailed by setbacks.