Cloud disaster recovery (DR) is a crucial aspect of continuity planning for modern supply chains. However, many organizations include recovery steps in their DR strategies only to find that emerging from a disruption is still long, slow and complicated. The omission of infrastructure-as-code (IaC) for disaster recovery may be the missing piece.
The need for cloud disaster recovery in supply chain operations is evident. Cloud platforms are becoming an industry standard, with 40% of supply chain organizations calling the cloud the most crucial tool for digital transformation. Similarly, many companies have invested heavily in bringing once air-gapped industrial equipment online. However, many DR strategies only focus on restoring these systems’ data, not the systems or hardware themselves.
Data recovery is essential, but it is an incomplete measure by itself. A supply chain may restore its data after a disruption, but if the tools it uses to process and respond to that data are still offline, the information itself is of little value. Ultimately, data is only a resource, so effective DR must also address the computing infrastructure that turns information into results.
Restoring a supply chain’s data also does not address issues involving operational technology (OT). As IT/OT convergence has risen, industrial equipment has become increasingly vulnerable to technical problems and cybersecurity incidents. Consequently, disruptions may take physical machines offline, so a cloud-only DR process still leaves mission-critical operations at a standstill.
The cost of equipment downtime in heavy industries has quadrupled over the past five years, so any DR solution that does not address OT systems is incomplete. However, restoring industrial control systems (ICS), reconfiguring automated machinery and rolling back firmware updates manually is remarkably time-consuming.
At the same time, supply chain organizations cannot forgo IT/OT convergence to avoid such issues, as interconnectivity is critical to ongoing efficiency. IaC allows facilities to embrace OT modernization while ensuring long-term resilience.
IaC runs computing infrastructure as configuration files, using code to manage digital resources instead of conventional, manual means. Supply chain leaders can use infrastructure-as-code for disaster recovery in several impactful ways.
Environment replication is one of IaC’s most valuable applications in cloud disaster recovery. Typically, warehouse robots and other equipment require manual reconfiguration of their settings and programming, which takes precious time and introduces room for error. IaC, by contrast, can automate this process to minimize the $25,000 businesses lose each hour amid downtime.
IaC’s most significant impact here is its extensive use of computing infrastructure automation. Once workers initiate the restoration from an ICS, the code will take care of the rest, automatically configuring the operating environment to how it was before. Businesses can also take this benefit further by using a single, interconnected system to manage all their OT systems. Interconnectivity and consolidation let a single IaC command restore programming across the OT environment simultaneously.
Similarly, supply chain managers can use IaC to track computing infrastructure changes and store previous versions. During normal operations, this visibility makes it easy to check the cause of a bug or misconfiguration as warehouses embrace digital ICS or other IT/OT convergence implementations. DR enables a streamlined rollback to older firmware versions or a facility-wide software update to give equipment the needed protections.
Supply chain professionals can choose from several off-the-shelf version control tools to track these iterations. Once something goes offline, they can use these applications to restore the ICS version before the one that failed to bring things back online, while they investigate the issue. Alternatively, IaC can issue an update across an OT environment to patch the vulnerability that led to equipment shutting down in the first place.
As supply chain leaders explore potential IaC strategies, they should emphasize automated testing. Regardless of what other computing infrastructure automation they implement, they must have a framework for ensuring the restored elements work as intended before relying on them. Post-configuration validation does so without slow, manual trial and error.
Up to 95% of all breaches are caused by human error, and such mistakes are more likely in an industry with less cybersecurity experience. Similarly, the cost of machines being offline is too great for trial and error to be justifiable. Automated testing frameworks review restored ICS environments to ensure they work correctly before deploying them.
Similarly, supply chain businesses should regularly simulate their cloud disaster recovery workflows. AI models can improve IaC by periodically testing the emergency response process to see how it works. The algorithm can then highlight any configuration errors, missed elements or other issues before they worsen a real situation.
No automated solution is perfect, and all code is prone to errors. Consequently, organizations must embrace ongoing review and optimization to ensure their IaC DR workflows work as intended. Automating the simulation process will ensure this does not conflict with time or financial restraints.
Regardless of which of these strategies a company hopes to implement, effective IaC starts with defining clear objectives. Leaders should assess past situations and their current machine setups to determine which IaC tools and techniques will be most impactful. Poor management and planning are common reasons why two-thirds of large tech projects fail, so aligning technologies with relevant business objectives from the start is critical.
All infrastructure automation tools must also work with the existing tech stack. That is a more prominent challenge with OT than IT, as many ICS platforms run on legacy operating systems or have limited computing resources. These limitations may require a custom solution or an equipment upgrade, likely necessitating work with an outside technology expert.
Teams may be unable to implement IaC for their entire facility simultaneously. The solution is to recognize which systems are the most mission-critical and prioritize them. After the initial IaC rollout is done and more resources flow in, developers can move on to other computing infrastructure.
Supply chain and logistics companies cannot overlook the value of infrastructure-as-code for disaster recovery. Modern facilities rely on cloud platforms and interconnected machinery, so restoring these is crucial to overcoming an unexpected disruption. Investing in protection before such an incident happens will yield long-term savings.