DORA Compliance and the Role of Multi-Cloud Strategies in Ensuring Operational Resilience

The Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), introduced by the European Union (EU) under Regulation (EU) 2022/2554, sets compliance standards aimed at ensuring operational resilience for financial institutions. This regulation, which applies to organizations operating within the EU, requires compliance by January 17, 2025. Much like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), DORA is expected to influence regulatory frameworks globally, making it a crucial consideration for businesses worldwide.

The Need for Multi-Cloud in DORA Compliance

A key aspect of DORA compliance revolves around operational resilience and disaster recovery testing. One of the major vulnerabilities identified by DORA is the reliance on a single cloud provider for both production operations and disaster recovery sites, which increases the systemic risks of cloud-based operations.

Although DORA doesn’t explicitly mandate that organizations use a cross-cloud disaster recovery (DR) site, it strongly encourages evaluating the risks associated with depending on a single cloud provider. This suggests that businesses should have the ability to recover from outages, particularly those impacting key cloud providers, and avoid vendor lock-in. To mitigate such risks, DORA hints at the adoption of cloud-agnostic disaster recovery solutions that can help maintain business continuity, even in the event of a failure from a primary cloud provider.

Why Multi-Cloud Is Key to DORA Compliance

Multi-cloud strategies naturally align with disaster recovery principles, particularly in terms of reducing dependency on a single cloud provider. A cornerstone of any DR plan is ensuring that the backup site is geographically separated from the production site, reducing the risks posed by regional disruptions or natural disasters. Although most cloud providers are secure and reliable, they are not immune to outages. To manage this risk, more enterprises are turning to multi-cloud environments.

By spreading workloads across multiple cloud providers, organizations can significantly improve their operational resilience and disaster recovery strategies, thus aligning with DORA’s emphasis on mitigating cloud provider risks.

How Enterprises Are Adopting Multi-Cloud Approaches

Many enterprises are already on the path to multi-cloud adoption as part of their cloud maturity journey. While it is uncommon for businesses to rely on five or six different cloud providers, many organizations have strategically chosen two or three providers to optimize both production operations and disaster recovery.

For both DORA compliance and broader disaster recovery best practices, businesses should consider:

• Placing disaster recovery sites in different geographic locations to minimize regional risk.

• Implementing cross-cloud disaster recovery strategies to prevent overreliance on a single provider.

• Using cloud-agnostic technologies to seamlessly work across multiple providers, reducing the risk of vendor lock-in.

Best Practices for Multi-Cloud Disaster Recovery

Organizations can take different approaches when implementing multi-cloud disaster recovery strategies:

1. Single-Cloud Production, Multi-Cloud DR: Maintain primary production operations in one cloud provider while leveraging a different provider for disaster recovery environments.

2. Multi-Cloud Production and DR: Distribute workloads across several cloud providers and configure reciprocal disaster recovery environments to ensure failover capabilities.

3. On-Prem Production, Multi-Cloud DR: For businesses with on-premises production, cloud-based disaster recovery can be set up in multiple clouds, with the flexibility to migrate between providers if needed.

Looking Ahead: The Future of DORA Compliance and Cloud Resilience

As operational resilience becomes an increasing focus across industries, multi-cloud disaster recovery is rapidly becoming a non-negotiable strategy for compliance, risk management, and business continuity. While DORA does not explicitly require cross-cloud disaster recovery, its recommendations strongly suggest that organizations should adopt cloud-agnostic strategies to safeguard against risks and ensure operational continuity. Other regulatory frameworks will likely follow DORA’s lead, further cementing the importance of multi-cloud solutions in the future of disaster recovery.