Understanding Data Mirroring And Its Role In Cloud Hosting Security
Considering the rising incidents of cyberattacks nowadays, data security is perhaps one of the top concerns for anyone involved in cybersecurity, owning an online business or anyone who has a digital presence. Data security fundamentally means that your data is securely stored where you want it to be, and no one else has any access to it. However, ensuring this isn’t that easy. Every day, we read about a new hack or a data breach. In each of these attacks, people are having their data stolen.
Apart from the general public getting concerned, the regulatory focus on privacy and security of data is growing too. The reason for this spotlight on security and privacy is because people realise how powerful information is. Identity thefts, financial risks, personal data leaks — the list is endless. We live in an era where information is everything. From the lock on your phone to your net banking password, our lives are entwined with crucial pieces of information. This information falling into the wrong hands can wreak havoc.
Data Security and Web Hosting
Web Hosting implies hosting or storing the relevant files and data of your website on a web server so that the site can be accessed over the internet. There are multiple types of web hosting solutions like Shared Hosting, VPS Hosting, Cloud Hosting and Dedicated Hosting. However, the basic reason for opting a web hosting solution remains the same — making your website accessible to your users over the internet.
Data security becomes especially important if you own a website. At different points, through different means, you’re constantly collecting data about your customers and website visitors. You might ask for their email addresses, or they may buy something off your website, or store some other information on your website.
Whatever the information might be, the onus of keeping it safe and private is on you — the website owner. Data breaches could not only lead to loss of reputation but in some cases, even lawsuits. So, data security is crucial if you’re a website owner.
Therefore, it is important that you look at the security aspects of your web hosting provider before opting for one. Every web hosting platform — Cloud, VPS or Dedicated, have specific security features that make them unique from the others. While VPS has isolated virtual servers, Dedicated Servers guarantee total privacy and complete ownership and control over server resources. When it comes to Cloud Hosting, data security is guaranteed by a process called data mirroring.
So, what is data mirroring in Cloud Hosting, and how does it impact Cloud Hosting security? Let us find out.
Data Mirroring in Cloud Hosting
In a Cloud Hosting setup, multiple websites are hosted together, and the data of those websites is stored across several servers. Apart from a number of performance-related advantages, there’s the added benefit of redundancy in your data storage environment.
In traditional hosting types, all the data is stored on a single server. If that server were to come under attack, all your website data would be threatened. With Cloud Hosting, that simply isn’t possible as your data isn’t stored in one place and distributed across multiple servers. As a result, Cloud Hosting plans are more secure than traditional hosting solutions.
Data mirroring means that data is copied, in its exact form, from one place to another in real-time. Data mirroring is implemented to ensure that your computing infrastructure is redundant. It’s a practice that is extensively used in Cloud Hosting.
One important point to note here is that data mirroring and Cloud Hosting infrastructure are two different things. In Cloud Hosting, data is stored on different servers. Data mirroring is an additional security step and a type of backup method where all the data is further copied to another storage device in real-time.
This means that you will, at any point, have at least two data copies that are in perfect sync. Any change made to your primary storage device is instantly and automatically copied to the other one. However, it is important to note that good hosting companies will usually make three copies of the data and store them in two different locations.
Types of Data Mirroring
- Local server mirroring
It’s a type of data mirroring where data is copied onto a different server in the same data centre. This means that both the servers are running, essentially, on the same platform. The primary server is called the master server, and the secondary storage server is called the slave server. The master server and the slave server are kept in constant sync.
2. Cross-platform mirroring
There’s one problem with local server mirroring. If there’s an attack on the entire data centre, the master and slave servers are both at risk. Cross-platform mirroring mitigates that risk. Instead of storing both the copies at the same physical data centre, the secondary copy is stored at a different location. This adds an additional layer of security to the infrastructure.
Impact of Data Mirroring on Cloud Hosting Security
Data mirroring is implemented to achieve two primary goals. One, to make sure that you never lose any data, even in case of data theft. Two, it ensures that any important data is always available. While those two things might seem to be the same, they aren’t.
In case of data theft, thanks to data mirroring, you will have another usable copy of your data. However, there are other concerns with storage devices too. One of the hard drives in the network may not be working at complete efficiency. This could be because of hardware wear and tear or any other reason. In such cases, you can use the backup copy to ensure peak performance.
The real advantage and security impact of data mirroring is in disaster recovery. Data can be stolen from your website, and you could lose important customer information or even business-critical files. While prevention is important, it’s crucial to set up an infrastructure where data that’s lost can be recovered. Mirroring data ensures that you will always have a copy of data that you can use.
Conclusion
Data security is a serious threat in today’s cyberscape. Governments, industry experts, and customers are all concerned about it. If you want to run a successful website, data security cannot be an afterthought. It has to be an important pillar of your overall infrastructure.
Data mirroring will help you in securing your network. It ensures that you always have a copy of all your data and what’s more, it’s always up to date, given that data is copied in real-time. For a modern business, data mirroring and a robust disaster recovery strategy must be a cornerstone of the overall security infrastructure.
Hosting companies realise this too. Leading hosting providers now provide data mirroring facilities with Cloud Hosting plans that store three copies of your data. This means that irrespective of what happens, you will not lose vital data.
