The Imperative of Redundancy in Our Tech-Dependent World

In the early hours of July 10th, 2024, organizations worldwide faced an unexpected challenge. A significant system outage caused by a major cyber event—often referred to as the CloudStrike incident—highlighted our profound dependence on technology. This event, which led to widespread disruptions in various sectors, serves as a stark reminder of the vulnerabilities inherent in our interconnected digital infrastructure.

The CloudStrike Incident: A Wake-Up Call

CloudStrike, a fictional yet plausible representation of the type of cyber events we frequently witness, illustrates how critical our reliance on technology has become. From financial institutions to healthcare providers, the ripple effects of such outages can be catastrophic. Systems that we rely on for daily operations, customer interactions, and data management were suddenly inaccessible, causing chaos and confusion.

The Technology Dependency Dilemma

Our modern lives and businesses are deeply intertwined with technology. We depend on cloud services for data storage, real-time communications, and operational efficiencies. However, this dependency also creates a single point of failure. When these systems go down, the impact is immediate and far-reaching.

The CloudStrike event is a prime example. Businesses were unable to process transactions, hospitals struggled with patient data management, and communication networks were severely disrupted. This incident underscores the need to rethink how we approach our reliance on technology.

The Necessity of Redundancy

Redundancy is the practice of having backup systems and processes in place to ensure continuity in the event of a failure. However, traditional approaches to redundancy, such as system replication, may not always be practical. For instance, replicating systems with the same provider, like Microsoft, would suffer similar outages unless the latest update causing the issue was not implemented yet. In challenging market conditions, organizations may not have enough margins to maintain such redundancies; but as this cloudstrike episode has demonstrated, the cost of not maintaining redundancies may far exceed the costs of the outage.

Practical Redundancy Solutions

To build a resilient organization capable of weathering tech disruptions, consider these practical steps:

Data Backup: Regularly backing up data to multiple, geographically dispersed locations ensures that critical information is not lost during an outage.
Alternative Communication Channels: Having multiple ways to communicate, both internally and externally, can mitigate the impact of network failures.
Manual Processes: The ultimate fallback when technology fails is manual processes. Organizations must carefully understand their processes at the most fundamental level and ensure they have manual procedures that can operate for a time without technology.

Implementing Effective Manual Processes

While technology provides efficiency and speed, it's crucial to prepare for scenarios where tech solutions are unavailable. This involves:

Mapping Out Processes: Thoroughly document and understand each step of your critical business processes.
Developing Manual Workarounds: Design and test manual workflows that can be quickly activated during an outage.
Training Employees: Regularly train staff on these manual processes to ensure they are ready to implement them when necessary.
Maintaining Essential Supplies: Ensure that you have the necessary tools and materials to operate manually, such as paper forms, offline tools, and basic communication devices.

That said, manual processes are the final fallback position when technology doesn’t work. It is by now means sustainable over extended periods of time. It is a stopgap measure in times of crisis that buys time for organizations to find a suitable tech fix as the manual process keeps thing going for a time.

The CloudStrike incident serves as a powerful reminder of our technology dependency and the critical need for redundancy. By proactively implementing backup systems and manual processes, organizations can better navigate the inevitable challenges that arise from our reliance on digital infrastructure. Preparing for the unexpected is not just a precaution; it's a necessity in our increasingly tech-dependent world.