Which of the following is crucial to maintain business operations during a cloud provider outage?

The key to maintaining business operations during a cloud provider outage lies in implementing a backup solution. Backups are essential because they ensure that critical data is preserved and can be restored quickly in the event of a service disruption. If a cloud provider experiences an outage, having a recent backup allows an organization to minimize data loss and resume operations either by switching to a secondary cloud provider or by restoring the data on-premises or in another environment.

Backup solutions can vary significantly, including regular data snapshots, offsite backups, and real-time syncing with alternative storage locations. The focus here is on the principle of redundancy—having multiple copies of data in different locations safeguards against service interruptions from any single source.

While understanding service-level agreements is also important, as it outlines the expectations and commitments from the cloud provider, it does not directly address how to maintain operations during an outage. Increasing total storage capacity and setting up a dedicated internet line do not provide immediate solutions to disruptions caused by outages from the cloud provider. Instead, they are focused on scalability and connectivity, which do not mitigate the risk of data loss or service inaccessibility during downtime.