Mastering Immutability, Air-Gapping, and Zero Trust for Unrivaled Cloud App Recovery

In the fast-growing field of cloud computing, protecting critical applications and data from advanced cyber threats is crucial for businesses globally. Ransomware poses a major risk, pushing the limits of cloud security.

Traditional defenses alone are insufficient, but Commvault® Cloud Rewind offers a cloud resilience model that focuses on strong recovery and rebuilding. This blog highlights how Cloud Rewind employs data immutability, air gapping, zero trust, and automated recovery to strengthen cloud environments after attacks.

The Essence of Cloud Resilience

Cloud resilience means that cloud services, apps, and important data can keep working and bounce back quickly after disruptions. It’s not just about fixing things after a disaster, it’s about stopping downtime and data loss, and making security and rules better.

Immutability: The Bedrock of Resilience

At the core of a cloud resilience strategy is data and configuration immutability. Immutability means that once data or configurations are set, they can’t be altered or tampered with, thereby safeguarding against unauthorized changes and cyberattacks.

Air Gapping: Virtual Fortification

Traditionally, air gapping meant physically separating a network from the internet to secure it against unauthorized access. Commvault Cloud Rewind has made this idea work for the cloud. Environments are created almost air-tight, which protect important data and applications from possible threats.

Zero Trust: A Paradigm Shift in Security

The cloud resilience model is based on the zero-trust security framework. This framework says that no one should be trusted by default, no matter where they are or how they work with the organization. By implementing strict access controls and continuously verifying every access request, Cloud Rewind allows only authorized personnel to access critical data, thereby preventing data breaches and enhancing the overall security posture.

The Cloud Rewind Difference: A Comprehensive Approach to Cloud Resilience

Cloud Rewind has a strong set of protections to make sure your cloud applications and important data are safe and resilient. Our approach is tailored to meet different requirements and maturity levels, providing peace of mind through multiple layers of immutability and air-gapped protection.

Cloud Configuration Immutability

At the foundation, our Dual-vault Cloud Time Machine secures cloud configurations in an external cloud account. This separation is strengthened with 256-bit encryption and follows strict SOC 2 controls. This allows for your configurations to stay unchanged, isolated, and protected from unauthorized access.

Application Data Immutability

• Level 1: Our snapshot-based data protection strategy secures the immutability of your application data. By creating unmodifiable snapshots, data can’t be altered unless it is purposefully restored, maintaining its integrity without extracting data from your environment.
• Level 2 with air-gapped network: Cloud Rewind replicates application data to a separate cloud region within an air-gapped Virtual Private Cloud. This layer not only preserves data immutability but also significantly reduces the risk of unauthorized access.
• Level 3 with zero trust and air-gapped network: Cloud Rewind offers replication to an entirely isolated AWS cloud account. This account is air-gapped and accessible only to authorized personnel under a zero-trust framework, where permissions are dynamically allocated and revoked. Cloud Rewind validates the snapshots with fingerprints from the original production environments so only the verified snapshots are recoverable for application rebuilds.
• Level 4 with zero trust and air-gapped cross-cloud network: For fully containerized applications, Cloud Rewind extends capabilities to cross-cloud protection. Migrate your application environment and data to different hyperscale providers, achieving complete isolation from the production cloud network, underpinned by a zero-trust and air-gapped architecture.

Why Is Automated Recovery Testing Still Important?

Beyond these protective measures, Cloud Rewind integrates policy-based automated recovery and reporting capabilities. This allows for human-free recovery testing and comprehensive reporting, further enhancing your resilience against potential disruptions.

Cloud Rewind for Holisitic Cloud Resilience

As cloud computing continues to evolve, the need for innovative cloud resilience strategies becomes increasingly critical. Cloud Rewind helps organizations navigate the digital world with confidence. It has a unique mix of immutability, air-gapping, and zero-trust architectures. Cloud environments are not only safe but also resilient with rebuild capabilities. Let’s move beyond traditional data backup and disaster recovery models toward a holistic cloud resilience model.