Your platform is down. What now? Every second costs money, trust, and reputation - up to £350 per minute. Without a plan, chaos takes over. Here's what you need to know:
Preparation is key. Failures will happen - make sure your business is ready to bounce back.
The first few minutes of an outage can make or break the speed of recovery. Here’s how to confirm the issue, understand its impact, and avoid making things worse.
Before escalating, make sure the problem is real. False alarms waste time and energy, so it’s essential to verify what’s happening.
Start with your cloud provider's status page. Major providers maintain these pages to report issues. For instance, on 12 June 2025, Google Cloud faced a service disruption caused by an invalid automated quota update in their API management system. They kept users informed through regular updates on their Cloud Service Health page.
If the status page shows no issues, the problem might be within your own systems. Use your monitoring tools to check for unusual patterns like spikes in error rates, slower response times, or higher resource usage. These signs can help you pinpoint whether it’s a configuration error, capacity issue, or a more serious platform failure.
Feedback from your team can also help clarify the scope. Is the issue affecting all users or just a specific group? Are some features functioning while others are failing? Tools like Down Detector or IsItDownRightNow.com can help confirm whether the issue is related to your local connection or something broader. If your internet connection is the problem, you might need an alternative to properly assess your cloud provider’s status.
Once you’ve verified the issue, the next step is to gauge its severity and plan your response accordingly.
Not all outages are equal. Classifying the incident quickly helps you determine the level of response required.
Real-world examples highlight the importance of understanding severity. In 2024, a Snowflake incident disrupted operations for organisations like Santander and Ticketmaster, affecting 30 million Santander customers and 560 million Ticketmaster customers. Similarly, when CDK Global suffered a ransomware attack in June 2024, they had to take systems offline, impacting thousands of dealerships.
By classifying the severity, you can allocate resources effectively and manage stakeholder expectations. A minor feature glitch doesn’t justify waking your entire team at 3 a.m., but a full platform outage certainly does.
Start documenting the incident immediately. Keeping an updated log throughout the outage isn’t just about ticking boxes - it’s an essential tool for communication and prevention.
Record the timeline of events, starting from when the issue was first detected. Note the symptoms users report, the systems affected, and any error messages encountered. Screenshots of monitoring dashboards, error logs, and other diagnostics can be invaluable.
This documentation serves several purposes. When reaching out to external support - whether it’s your cloud vendor, a managed service provider, or consultants - they’ll need detailed information to resolve the issue efficiently. It also becomes a key resource for post-mortem analysis. A 2022 Uptime Institute report found that nearly 40% of major outages in the past three years were due to human error, with 85% of these stemming from staff not following procedures or flaws in the procedures themselves.
Keep your team and stakeholders in the loop with regular updates, even if there’s no new progress. This shows that the situation is under active management.
Documenting events in real time ensures you capture critical details while they’re fresh. This not only helps resolve the current issue but also strengthens your ability to prevent similar problems in the future. It’s a cornerstone of effective incident management and preparation.
Once you've identified and assessed the problem, it's time to decide who to reach out to for assistance. The choice depends on the severity of the issue, your team's expertise, and your budget. Each option comes with its own benefits and limitations.
Managed Service Providers (MSPs) are a reliable choice for businesses that need ongoing support but lack the resources to manage cloud systems in-house. These providers offer services like 24/7 monitoring, proactive maintenance, and expertise across various cloud platforms, all for a fixed monthly fee.
This setup works well for companies looking to outsource routine cloud operations, focusing on prevention rather than reacting to problems as they arise. MSPs help with budget planning thanks to their predictable costs, but they might not be the best option if you need fast responses during a crisis.
For situations requiring immediate action, on-demand cloud support services can be a better fit. Services like Critical Cloud offer flexible, no-commitment solutions tailored to your needs. They're particularly useful for fast-paced businesses like digital agencies, SaaS startups, and EdTech companies that may not require continuous monitoring but need expert help when issues arise.
The biggest advantages here are speed and specialisation. Instead of waiting in queues, you get quick access to experienced engineers who focus on resolving your problem. These services also assist with cost-saving measures and compliance. However, you pay only when you use these services, which means they don't provide the continuous oversight that MSPs offer.
If you suspect the issue lies with your cloud provider - whether it's AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud - their support channels are often your first stop. Providers maintain status pages and offer escalation options, but response times vary depending on your support tier. Basic plans might leave you waiting for hours or even days, while premium tiers can deliver responses in as little as 15 minutes for critical issues.
However, even premium tiers have faced delays during major outages. To speed up resolution, provide detailed information when escalating an issue. Include specifics like affected services, error messages, and a timeline of events. For networking problems, share source and destination addresses along with any filtering details. Keeping a clear log of your troubleshooting steps can also help.
If the issue involves a production outage, escalate it immediately. Once you've ruled out local connectivity problems and confirmed the issue isn't within your configuration, it's time to contact your cloud provider directly.
With your support options outlined, the next step is to make the most of recovery tools.
The right tools can make a huge difference in how quickly you recover from incidents. By focusing on monitoring, incident management, and team coordination, you can minimise downtime and get back on track faster. Equip your team with tools that seamlessly integrate, detect problems early, and trigger swift responses.
Monitoring tools are your first line of defence, providing the visibility needed to identify and address issues before they escalate. Datadog is a popular choice, offering a comprehensive view of logs, metrics, applications, and user experiences. It’s particularly useful for teams managing complex systems across multiple layers.
"We have deployed Datadog for our all cloud deployments in AWS cloud. Numerous integrations enable comprehensive monitoring." - Nabeel S., Datadog Reviewer
For startups keeping an eye on costs, Site24x7 is a strong contender. It’s easy to set up and integrates well with both on-premises and cloud platforms, making it a practical choice for smaller teams.
"It's easy to set up and integrate with both on-prem as well as cloud platforms, even for a one-man army." - Hermann A., Site24x7 Reviewer
If you’re looking to cut down on manual setup, LogicMonitor offers automated discovery, which simplifies configuration and gets you up and running quickly.
"Instead of telling your monitoring tool what you want to be monitored, LogicMonitor will discover a lot of the metric and data points for you, mostly out of the box, and away you go." - Laurie S., LogicMonitor Reviewer
Key features to focus on include real-time monitoring, intelligent alerting, and anomaly detection. These features ensure you can act on issues immediately, rather than waiting for customer complaints. Considering that inefficiencies waste up to £20 billion or 33% of cloud budgets annually, investing in the right tools can save money in the long run.
Once alerts are triggered, seamless incident tracking ensures your team is mobilised without delay.
Incident tracking platforms are essential for coordinating your team’s response. They automate ticket routing and ensure alerts reach the right people based on their expertise and workload. At Airbnb, the adoption of incident.io significantly improved their incident response culture.
"If I could point to the single most impactful thing we did to change the culture at Airbnb, it would be rolling out incident.io and democratising incident response." - Nils Pommerien, Director, SRE
Modern platforms often include no-code automation, which speeds up resolutions. This is particularly important as 81% of teams report delays in responses due to time-consuming manual investigations.
Integrating these platforms with your existing systems ensures a unified recovery process, reducing friction and improving efficiency.
Integration is key to making sure your recovery tools enhance your response rather than slow it down. The best setups link monitoring alerts directly to incident tracking platforms, automatically generating tickets when thresholds are breached.
If you’re using multiple cloud providers, multi-cloud support is a must. Your monitoring tools should work seamlessly across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform without requiring separate configurations.
Ensure your tools also support features like access controls, audit logs, and compliance with GDPR and ISO standards. Scalability is another critical factor - your tools should adjust to changes in data volume or application usage, ensuring they meet your organisation’s needs as they evolve.
The ultimate goal is to create a smooth workflow from detecting a problem to resolving it, with every tool working together to minimise downtime and keep operations running efficiently.
Having a reliable failover strategy in place is critical to keeping operations running smoothly during an outage. A backup plan isn't just about saving data; it's about creating layers of redundancy across your systems and ensuring those systems actually work when it matters most. Regular testing is key to making sure your plan holds up under pressure.
While earlier steps focus on immediate recovery tools, a well-thought-out backup plan ensures your business can endure and recover from even prolonged disruptions.
A good backup plan goes beyond quick recovery - it protects your operations from being entirely dependent on a single point of failure. If all your infrastructure is tied to one cloud region or provider, a single outage could bring everything to a halt. To avoid this, spread your critical workloads across multiple regions and providers. Major cloud platforms offer solutions like AWS RDS Multi-AZ, Azure Geo-Redundant Storage, and Google Cloud Spanner, which can replicate data across regions and balance traffic during failover.
Following the 3-2-1 rule is a smart move: keep three copies of your data, store them on two different types of media, and make sure one copy is off-site. This approach ensures that even in the worst-case scenario, you’ll have access to your data.
You might also want to consider a multi-cloud strategy. This means hosting your primary workloads with one provider and using another for backups and disaster recovery. It’s an extra layer of security, reducing the risk of total downtime.
Automated systems for backups and disaster recovery are essential to reducing downtime. Most cloud providers offer tools that handle scheduling, data retention, and restoration automatically. These tools often encrypt your data both during transfer and when stored, helping you meet recovery time (RTO) and recovery point (RPO) objectives.
Databases need special attention. Backup systems should manage transaction logs and allow point-in-time recovery. However, many organisations make the mistake of assuming their backups are reliable without ever testing them. This can lead to disaster in critical situations. For example, a healthcare provider without verified backups could face serious delays in recovery, disrupting patient care.
To guard against ransomware attacks, implement immutable backups - these cannot be changed or deleted. Store these backups separately and secure them with distinct access credentials to add another layer of protection.
Even the most detailed backup plan won’t help if it hasn’t been tested. Regular testing ensures that your failover systems are ready to handle the complexities of your growing business.
Schedule tests based on how often your data changes and how critical it is to your operations. For small businesses, monthly tests might suffice, while more dynamic systems may need weekly checks. Use methods like checksums or isolated restorations to verify backup integrity and ensure recovery times meet your RTO targets.
Fabian Wosar, Chief Technology Officer at Emsisoft, highlights the importance of testing:
"In a lot of cases, companies do have backups, but they never actually tried to restore their network from backups before, so they have no idea how long it's going to take."
Run simulations of potential disasters, such as hardware failures, cyberattacks, or natural events, and review logs for any missed or failed backup jobs. Document the outcomes to identify and fix weak points in your plan.
Automated tools like AWS Backup restore testing can simplify this process. In one case, a routine test revealed that restoring a database took six hours - two hours longer than the organisation’s four-hour RTO. The issue was traced to a configuration error, which was corrected before it caused real problems.
When testing database recovery, ensure you have enough disk space and the necessary database management tools. Map out dependencies across your network and establish the order in which systems should be restored. Keep decryption keys and restore applications stored securely off-site but accessible when needed.
A thoroughly tested backup plan doesn’t just minimise downtime - it strengthens your overall ability to handle outages, ensuring your business can keep moving forward.
Platform failures are a fact of life. According to IDC, 80% of small businesses have faced downtime, with the costs of just one incident ranging between £67,000 and £210,000. In the UK alone, businesses fend off around 65,000 hacking attempts daily, with 4,500 of those being successful.
To weather these challenges, preparation must come before reaction. As Thomas King, CTO at DE-CIX, puts it:
"What outages could occur? How critical is the data or the workload involved? How negative will the impact of each of these types of outages be? What countermeasures should be taken?"
Modern cloud-based disaster recovery solutions have reshaped the game for growing businesses. These services now offer flexible, subscription-based pricing models, making them more accessible. For example, small to medium-sized businesses might allocate between £8,200 and £41,000 annually for disaster recovery - an investment that pales in comparison to the potential financial blow of a single outage.
But having a plan isn’t enough. The most resilient businesses continuously test and refine their strategies. Recovery testing is the only way to confirm whether your systems can bounce back within the required timeframe. Full data recovery tests should be conducted at least once a year, though critical systems may demand monthly or even weekly testing.
To prepare effectively, focus on three key areas: immediate response capabilities, reliable external support channels, and proven failover systems. Spread your resources across multiple cloud providers, train your team for contingency roles, and maintain open communication with managed service providers or on-demand support teams.
Jaco Vermeulen, CTO at BML Group, highlights the importance of staying vigilant:
"All executive management and leaders are responsible for business continuity and plans need to be reviewed, whenever there is an operational change or change in systems/IT landscape. Any such change can become a punch in the face to plans if not properly checked."
For actionable steps, refer to Steps 1–4, which cover problem classification, escalation processes, recovery tools, and backup planning.
Ultimately, the businesses that thrive during platform failures are those that view resilience as an ongoing effort, not a one-off task. With cybercrime projected to cost £8.6 trillion annually by 2025, investing in solid preparation today safeguards both your current operations and your future growth.
Outages will happen - make sure you’re ready.
When a cloud platform failure strikes, the first move is to evaluate the situation. Pinpoint which systems are impacted, gauge the extent of the outage, and decide on priorities based on how much the issue affects your business. This ensures your efforts are directed where they’re most needed.
Once you’ve assessed the problem, put your contingency measures into action. This might involve switching to backup systems or using failover solutions. Equally important is clear communication - keep your team and stakeholders updated about the issue, what’s being done to fix it, and estimated recovery times. This transparency helps reduce confusion and keeps everyone aligned.
Preparation makes all the difference. Having an incident response plan ready, complete with contact details for external support like managed service providers and access to backup systems, can significantly speed up recovery and keep your operations running smoothly.
To keep your disaster recovery plan ready for action, make regular testing a priority. Run realistic drills that simulate potential crises to uncover any weak spots and ensure your team knows exactly what to do. It's also a good idea to review and update the plan every year, factoring in any shifts within your organisation or updates in technology.
Bring key stakeholders into the mix during these tests and revisions. When everyone understands their responsibilities in a crisis, it reduces confusion, cuts downtime, and makes recovery much smoother if a real disaster strikes.
Managed Service Providers (MSPs) deliver continuous, proactive support, covering everything from monitoring and maintenance to handling incidents. This approach helps reduce downtime and ensures quicker recovery during outages. That said, MSPs often come with higher costs and may not always offer the level of flexibility some businesses require.
In contrast, on-demand cloud support operates on a pay-as-you-go model, making it a great option for immediate fixes. However, its effectiveness can sometimes be hindered by issues like unreliable internet connections or limited knowledge of your specific setup. While MSPs excel in providing long-term, preventative care, on-demand services are better suited for tackling short-term problems swiftly.