9 AWS Cloud security best practices every SMB should know

Recent data shows that while 89% of organizations provide HIPAA Privacy Rule training and 81% cover the Security Rule, only 50% actually test employees on this training at least annually. For SMBs, this gap underscores the risk: disaster recovery plans must not only ensure system uptime but also safeguard protected health information (PHI) in line with HIPAA standards. 

Aligning disaster recovery strategies with HIPAA’s privacy, security, and breach notification rules empower SMBs to reduce the likelihood of compliance failures, avoid costly penalties, and maintain patient trust even in the face of outages or cyber incidents.

This article outlines how SMBs can design disaster recovery strategies that meet HIPAA requirements without adding unnecessary complexity. It covers practical steps, AWS-native tools, and expert approaches to protect PHI while ensuring business continuity.

Key takeaways:

• HIPAA-aligned DR is non-negotiable: Ensuring PHI availability, integrity, and recoverability is essential for both compliance and patient trust.
• Define clear recovery objectives: RTO and RPO must be set for critical systems like EHRs, billing, and lab apps to meet HIPAA standards.
• Automate and secure backups: AWS Backup, Amazon RDS snapshots, Amazon S3 versioning, and S3 Object Lock help prevent data loss, tampering, and accidental deletion.
• Test, monitor, and audit continuously: Regular disaster recovery drills, AWS CloudTrail logs, AWS Config, AWS Security Hub, and Amazon GuardDuty ensure operational readiness and regulatory compliance.
• Partnering with Cloudtech accelerates compliance: Cloudtech combines deep AWS expertise with healthcare SMB experience to implement robust, HIPAA-compliant disaster recovery strategies efficiently and reliably.

What happens when disaster recovery isn't aligned with HIPAA compliance?

A recovery strategy that isn’t HIPAA-compliant exposes the organization to regulatory penalties, potential breaches of sensitive data, and loss of patient trust. In other words, it’s a compliance gap with real legal and financial consequences.

Key risks of non-aligned disaster recovery:

• Data loss and PHI exposure: Without HIPAA-compliant backups, PHI may be permanently lost or exposed in an outage, violating the privacy and security rules.
• Extended downtime: Non-compliant DR plans often lack recovery time objectives (RTOs) and recovery point objectives (RPOs) that meet HIPAA’s standard for timely access to health data.
• Audit and fines: HIPAA requires covered entities and business associates to demonstrate compliance. Gaps in disaster recovery can result in failed audits, leading to fines that range from thousands to millions of dollars.
• Erosion of patient trust: Beyond penalties, patients expect their health data to remain secure and accessible. A breach of this trust can be more damaging than financial loss.
• Increased manual intervention: Without automation and monitoring (as encouraged by AWS best practices), IT teams face delays in restoring services, creating compliance and operational risks.

In short, a disaster recovery plan that isn’t HIPAA-aligned exposes healthcare SMBs to data vulnerabilities, regulatory consequences, and reputational damage. Aligning DR with HIPAA ensures not only legal compliance but also resilience, continuity of care, and patient confidence.

Step-by-step process for performing HIPAA compliant disaster recovery

AWS is well-suited for HIPAA-aligned disaster recovery (DR) because it provides secure, compliant infrastructure with built-in resilience. Features like multi-AZ replication, automated backups, and encrypted storage ensure protected health information (PHI) is both highly available and safeguarded.

On top of this, AWS offers tools to make DR both fast and auditable. AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery (DRS) enables quick failover across Regions, while AWS CloudTrail and AWS Config deliver the logs needed for HIPAA reporting. These tools enable SMBs to design DR strategies that not only minimize downtime but also maintain HIPAA’s required safeguards for confidentiality, integrity, and availability of PHI.

SMBs can follow a step-by-step process to perform HIPAA compliant disaster recovery:

1. Identify PHI and compliance scope

Before building disaster recovery, SMBs need a clear understanding of where protected health information (PHI) resides and how it flows across their systems. This ensures every workload that stores or processes PHI is covered under HIPAA safeguards, minimizing compliance gaps and protecting patient trust.

How to do this with AWS:

• Use AWS Macie to automatically scan and classify PHI within S3 buckets.
• Leverage AWS Config to track PHI-related workloads and validate that they meet HIPAA-required configurations.
• Centralize resource visibility with AWS Organizations to map which accounts and workloads fall under HIPAA compliance obligations.

Use case: A regional healthcare SMB uploads patient records and lab results into Amazon S3. They use AWS Macie to detect PHI such as social security numbers and health IDs, then apply AWS Config rules to verify encryption at rest and in transit. 

Through AWS Organizations, they centralize compliance policies across multiple accounts, ensuring PHI workloads are scoped properly before defining their disaster recovery plan.

2. Define recovery objectives

HIPAA requires healthcare organizations to ensure PHI remains available and intact during a disaster. To achieve this, SMBs must define recovery time objectives (RTO), like how quickly systems must be restored, and recovery point objectives (RPO), like how much data can be lost without violating compliance. 

By aligning these objectives with business-critical systems such as electronic health records (EHRs), billing platforms, and lab applications, SMBs can prioritize recovery where it matters most.

How to do this with AWS:

• Use AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery (AWS DRS) to set RPO/RTO targets and replicate workloads with minimal data loss.
• Leverage Amazon CloudWatch metrics to monitor workload performance against defined RTO thresholds.
• Run compliance-driven simulations with AWS Fault Injection Simulator (FIS) to validate if recovery objectives meet HIPAA availability standards.

Use case: A mid-sized healthcare SMB running an EHR system on Amazon RDS defines an RPO of 15 minutes and an RTO of 1 hour. They use AWS DRS to continuously replicate the EHR database across Availability Zones, configure CloudWatch alarms to track recovery SLAs, and regularly test scenarios with AWS FIS. 

This ensures that, even during outages, PHI remains both available and compliant with HIPAA’s integrity and availability requirements.

3. Design a HIPAA-ready architecture

To meet HIPAA’s requirements for confidentiality, integrity, and availability of PHI, SMBs need to design their disaster recovery architecture with both resilience and security in mind. 

This means workloads must withstand outages across Availability Zones (AZs) or even Regions, while ensuring PHI is encrypted, access-controlled, and isolated from unauthorized traffic. A HIPAA-ready architecture balances technical robustness with strict compliance safeguards.

How to do this with AWS:

• Enable multi-AZ and multi-Region deployments with services like Amazon RDS, Amazon S3 Cross-Region Replication, and AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery for fault tolerance.
• Encrypt PHI at rest and in transit using AWS Key Management Service (KMS) and enforcing TLS across all communication channels.
• Apply least-privilege IAM policies and network segmentation with AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM), Amazon VPC, and security groups to restrict access to PHI workloads.

Use case: A regional healthcare SMB runs its billing and patient management system on Amazon RDS and Amazon EC2. To ensure HIPAA alignment, they configure multi-AZ failover for their RDS database, use S3 cross-region replication to back up billing records, and encrypt all PHI with KMS-managed keys. 

Their security team enforces IAM role-based access and VPC segmentation so only authorized clinicians and billing staff can reach the sensitive workloads. This design ensures resilience against outages while maintaining HIPAA-grade data security.

4. Automate backups and replication

A HIPAA-aligned DR plan requires that PHI is continuously protected without relying on manual processes. Automated backups and replication not only reduce human error but also ensure that data can be quickly restored in case of outages, corruption, or accidental deletion. By combining immutability and versioning, SMBs create an auditable, compliant trail of PHI data protection.

How to do this with AWS:

• Enable AWS Backup to centralize and automate backups across services like Amazon RDS, Amazon EFS, and DynamoDB.
• Use Amazon RDS automated snapshots and point-in-time recovery to protect EHR or billing databases.
• Configure Amazon S3 versioning and Object Lock to prevent tampering or accidental deletions of PHI backups.

Use case: A growing healthcare SMB runs its electronic lab results system on Amazon RDS and stores patient reports in Amazon S3. They configure AWS Backup to automatically capture daily RDS snapshots and enforce Object Lock on S3 buckets holding PHI. 

If a staff member accidentally deletes or modifies a report, the SMB can restore it from an immutable backup, ensuring compliance with HIPAA’s data integrity and availability requirements.

5. Implement disaster recovery orchestration

A HIPAA-compliant DR plan cannot stop at backups, it must also ensure rapid workload recovery in the event of an outage. Orchestration brings automation and repeatability, reducing recovery times and minimizing human error during stressful failover scenarios. By continuously testing and validating DR runbooks, SMBs align with HIPAA’s requirement to maintain PHI availability.

How to do this with AWS:

• Use AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery (DRS) to replicate workloads from primary to standby environments with minimal downtime.
• Configure automated failover workflows using AWS CloudEndure or Step Functions to orchestrate multi-tier application recovery.
• Regularly test recovery plans through controlled failover drills to validate compliance with HIPAA’s availability standards.

Use case: A healthcare SMB hosting its billing and claims system on Amazon EC2 replicates workloads to a secondary Region using AWS DRS. They set up automated failover playbooks with AWS Step Functions to bring critical services online within their defined RTO. Twice a year, the IT team runs simulated failover tests to confirm systems can recover quickly while meeting HIPAA’s operational availability rules.

6. Monitor and audit continuously

HIPAA compliance isn’t a one-time setup. It requires ongoing monitoring and evidence that security and availability controls are enforced at all times. Continuous visibility helps SMBs detect unauthorized access, configuration drift, or security threats before they impact PHI. Auditability also ensures organizations can demonstrate compliance during regulatory reviews.

How to do this with AWS:

• Enable AWS CloudTrail and AWS Config to track all API activity and resource changes across accounts.
• Use AWS Security Hub and GuardDuty to continuously monitor for misconfigurations, anomalies, or suspicious activities tied to PHI workloads.
• Set up log retention policies in Amazon S3 and Glacier to meet HIPAA’s requirement for forensic investigations and long-term compliance audits.

Use case: A healthcare SMB runs its patient scheduling system on Amazon RDS and EC2. With AWS CloudTrail enabled, every API call is logged, while AWS Config flags non-compliant security group changes. GuardDuty alerts the IT team about unusual login attempts, and all logs are securely stored in Amazon S3 with Object Lock, ensuring immutability for HIPAA audit readiness.

7. Test and validate regularly

A disaster recovery plan is only effective if it works when needed. HIPAA explicitly requires organizations to test and train their workforce on contingency procedures. Regular DR drills not only validate the technical failover process but also prepare teams to respond quickly during real incidents. Documenting results is essential for proving compliance in HIPAA audits.

How to do this with AWS:

• Use AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery (DRS) or CloudEndure to run non-disruptive failover tests without impacting production workloads.
• Leverage AWS Fault Injection Simulator to perform chaos engineering experiments and validate resilience against failures.
• Automate reporting with AWS Systems Manager to capture test outcomes and retain evidence for compliance audits.

Use case: A mid-sized dental practice runs its billing application on Amazon RDS and EC2. Twice a year, the IT team uses AWS DRS to spin up a recovery environment in another Region and measure failover time against the defined RTO. They document the results in AWS Systems Manager runbooks, creating a compliance trail that auditors can review to confirm HIPAA readiness.

8. Update policies and procedures

Disaster recovery is also about people and processes. HIPAA requires that contingency plans be backed by documented policies and workforce training. Updating policies ensures that technical safeguards (like backups, failover, and monitoring) align with organizational procedures for incident response. 

Training staff makes sure employees know their roles during an outage, helping maintain the availability, confidentiality, and integrity of PHI.

How to do this with AWS:

• Integrate AWS backup and DR workflows into internal SOPs so staff know when and how to trigger failover or recovery.
• Use AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) to enforce role-based access policies that map directly to DR responsibilities.
• Leverage AWS Artifact to access HIPAA-related compliance reports and share them with staff during training and audits.

Use case: A regional urgent care provider documents new policies for how its staff should respond if its Electronic Health Record (EHR) system becomes unavailable. The IT team integrates AWS Backup and AWS DRS workflows into the policy playbook and uses IAM roles to define which staff members can initiate recovery. 

During quarterly training, employees review these procedures alongside HIPAA guidelines, ensuring both compliance and operational readiness.

Pro tip: Working with an AWS Partner like Cloudtech is highly advisable for HIPAA-relevant disaster recovery because certified partners bring deep expertise in AWS security, compliance, and healthcare workloads. 

They understand how to map HIPAA safeguards to AWS services, design resilient multi-Region architectures, and implement proper encryption, monitoring, and audit controls. 

See how other SMBs have modernized, scaled, and thrived with Cloudtech’s support →

How does Cloudtech help healthcare SMBs set up HIPAA-compliant disaster recovery?

What sets Cloudtech apart is its deep AWS expertise combined with a human-centric approach tailored for SMBs. Cloudtech focuses exclusively on helping smaller organizations modernize with AWS while staying compliant with complex frameworks like HIPAA. 

For healthcare SMBs, this means DR strategies that not only meet technical requirements but also align with regulatory safeguards for PHI protection and availability.

Relevant Cloudtech services for HIPAA-compliant DR:

• Infrastructure & resiliency services: Multi-AZ and multi-Region design, backup automation, and failover orchestration using AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery.
• Data modernization: Secure storage, encryption, and compliant data lake/warehouse strategies for PHI.
• Security & governance: HIPAA-aligned identity management, monitoring with CloudTrail, GuardDuty, and AWS Config, plus audit-ready logging.
• Managed cloud services: Ongoing monitoring, DR drills, and policy alignment to keep systems and staff compliant over time.

By combining these services, Cloudtech ensures healthcare SMBs achieve HIPAA-compliant DR that is resilient, cost-efficient, and continuously audit-ready.

Wrapping up

HIPAA-compliant disaster recovery is a critical safeguard for protecting patient data, maintaining trust, and ensuring uninterrupted operations. For healthcare SMBs, even minor misconfigurations or gaps can have serious regulatory, financial, and reputational consequences.

Partnering with an AWS expert like Cloudtech ensures DR strategies are designed and implemented with precision. With their support, healthcare teams can focus on patient care and growth, confident that critical workloads remain protected and compliant.

Connect with Cloudtech today to build a HIPAA-compliant disaster recovery strategy that safeguards PHI and keeps your operations running smoothly.

FAQs

1. Why is disaster recovery critical for HIPAA compliance in SMBs?

‍ Disaster recovery ensures that Protected Health Information (PHI) remains available, intact, and recoverable during outages, cyberattacks, or human errors. HIPAA mandates that healthcare organizations implement technical safeguards to maintain data availability and integrity, making DR an essential compliance component.

2. Can small healthcare SMBs implement HIPAA-compliant DR without AWS expertise?

‍ While technically possible, doing so is highly challenging. Configuring multi-AZ/Region replication, secure backups, failover orchestration, and audit logging requires deep AWS knowledge. Without it, gaps in compliance or misconfigured systems could expose PHI to risks.

3. How often should SMBs test their HIPAA-compliant DR plans?

‍ HIPAA recommends testing and workforce training at least annually. Frequent testing—quarterly or semi-annual—helps validate that backups, failovers, and alerting mechanisms work correctly, while also familiarizing staff with DR processes to reduce human errors during incidents.

4. What AWS services are most useful for HIPAA-aligned disaster recovery?

‍ AWS offers several critical tools for DR, including AWS Backup, RDS snapshots, Amazon S3 with Object Lock, AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery (DRS), CloudEndure, CloudTrail, AWS Config, Security Hub, and GuardDuty. These services help SMBs automate backups, orchestrate failovers, and maintain audit-ready logs.

5. How does Cloudtech add value beyond standard AWS DR capabilities?

‍ Cloudtech tailors disaster recovery strategies for healthcare SMBs by aligning AWS services with HIPAA requirements. They implement automated backups, replication, and failover, validate recovery objectives, enforce least-privilege access, and provide continuous monitoring and staff training, ensuring DR is compliant, resilient, and fully operational.

‍

When it comes to modernizing applications, two terms come into the picture: serverless and containers. Both promise agility, scalability, and cost savings, but they aren’t interchangeable. Think of them like choosing between ride-sharing and owning a car. One gives on-demand convenience without worrying about maintenance, while the other gives you full control and flexibility but requires more management. 

For SMB leaders, picking the right approach directly impacts how fast they can innovate, how resilient their systems are, and how much value they get from the cloud. That’s why understanding where serverless and containers shine and where they fall short is critical to making the right modernization decision.

This article explores how SMBs can navigate the choice between serverless and containers, weighing scalability, cost, and agility to find the right fit for their growth journey.

Key takeaways:

• Align workloads: Serverless for event-driven, bursty tasks; containers for persistent, complex, or legacy apps.
• Manage overhead: Serverless minimizes ops; containers provide control and consistency.
• Optimize costs: Serverless suits spiky usage; containers fit continuous, predictable workloads.
• Plan for growth: Serverless boosts agility; containers support hybrid and incremental modernization.
• Utilize expertise: AWS partners like Cloudtech ensure precise, SMB-tailored modernization strategies.

What is the difference between serverless and containers?

Serverless computing, offered through services like AWS Lambda, eliminates the need to manage servers by running small, event-driven functions only when triggered. It automatically scales with demand, and businesses pay solely for execution time. For SMBs, serverless is ideal for lightweight, event-driven workloads such as APIs, chatbots, automation, or data pipelines, enabling lean IT teams to innovate without infrastructure overhead.

Containers, powered by Amazon ECS or Amazon EKS, bundle applications with all dependencies into portable units that run consistently across environments. While they require orchestration, containers offer greater control, flexibility, and compatibility with existing systems. For SMBs, they’re well-suited to modernizing monoliths, migrating legacy workloads, or running long-lived services with custom runtimes or persistent connections, delivering agility without demanding a full application rewrite.

5 key factors to consider when choosing between serverless and containers

Selecting between serverless and containers directly impacts cost, scalability, and long-term agility. Picking the wrong model can lead to wasted resources, higher operational complexity, or stalled innovation. For instance, trying to force a long-running, resource-heavy application into serverless could result in unpredictable costs and performance bottlenecks. Similarly, running simple, event-driven workloads on containers might burden lean IT teams with unnecessary infrastructure management. 

In short, the wrong decision can lock SMBs into a path that drains time, budget, and focus, resources that should instead fuel growth and innovation.

These are the five critical factors to weigh before making the decision:

1. Matching workloads to the right model

When deciding between serverless and containers, the nature of the workload plays a critical role. Each model is optimized for different usage patterns and technical requirements, and AWS offers mature services to support both approaches.

Serverless (AWS Lambda, API Gateway, EventBridge, DynamoDB Streams): Serverless is built for event-driven and bursty workloads where execution is short-lived and scales instantly based on demand.

Relevant features:

• Scales automatically in response to triggers such as S3 uploads, API calls, or stream events.
• Pricing is tied directly to execution time and allocated memory, making it cost-effective for spiky or unpredictable traffic.
• Ideal for real-time data transformations, automation scripts, lightweight APIs, and asynchronous jobs.

Maximum execution duration per Lambda is 15 minutes, and workloads needing persistent connections, custom networking, or OS-level control are not well-suited.

Example: An e-commerce SMB handling unpredictable spikes during flash sales can use Lambda + API Gateway to scale checkout and order processing instantly without provisioning servers.

Containers (Amazon ECS, Amazon EKS, AWS Fargate): Containers shine in scenarios where applications need long-running processes, complex dependencies, or granular infrastructure control.

Relevant features:

• Provide a consistent runtime across environments, ensuring portability for modernized and legacy workloads.
• Support stateful services, persistent connections, and specialized runtimes not possible in Lambda.
• Well-suited for monolithic applications being broken into microservices, API backends requiring consistent performance, or real-time services like chat/messaging apps.

Unlike serverless, containers allow fine-tuning of compute, networking, and scaling policies, giving SMBs more control over performance.

Example: A logistics SMB modernizing its shipment tracking system with continuous real-time updates can use Amazon ECS on Fargate to maintain persistent connections and predictable long-running processes.

2. Meeting growth and performance demands

As SMBs grow, applications must scale reliably to handle more users, data, and transactions without compromising performance. The right choice between serverless and containers depends on whether growth is unpredictable or steady, and AWS offers services that adapt to both scenarios.

Serverless (AWS Lambda, Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon API Gateway): Serverless is optimized for elastic, demand-driven growth, making it ideal for workloads that experience sudden or uneven traffic spikes.

Relevant features:

• Scales automatically to handle thousands of concurrent executions without manual intervention.
• DynamoDB provides millisecond response times at virtually unlimited scale, supporting unpredictable usage patterns.
• No capacity planning required, as usage-based pricing means SMBs only pay for what they consume.

Best suited for flash sales, seasonal campaigns, or viral user activity where demand surges are short-lived but intense.

Example: A ticketing SMB can rely on Lambda + DynamoDB to instantly scale when thousands of users attempt to book during a major event release, avoiding downtime and overprovisioning costs.

Containers (Amazon ECS, Amazon EKS, AWS Fargate, Amazon Aurora): Containers are better suited for predictable, performance-intensive workloads that need continuous scale and stable throughput.

Relevant features:

• Enable horizontal scaling (adding more containers) or vertical scaling (tuning compute resources per container) based on workload demand.
• Amazon Aurora with ECS/EKS provides high throughput and low latency for relational data workloads.
• Support granular performance tuning for CPU, memory, and network, ensuring consistent user experience.

Ideal for always-on services, large data processing pipelines, or SaaS platforms with predictable growth.

Example: A logistics SMB running a real-time shipment tracking platform can use ECS with Aurora to maintain consistent performance as the user base grows steadily year over year.

3. Time and effort to manage infrastructure

One of the most important considerations for SMBs is how much time and expertise they can dedicate to managing infrastructure. The choice between serverless and containers often comes down to how much control an organization wants versus how much operational burden it can handle.

Serverless (AWS Lambda, API Gateway, DynamoDB): Serverless abstracts away most of the infrastructure complexity, allowing lean IT teams to stay focused on building business features rather than maintaining environments.

Relevant features:

• No servers to patch, scale, or monitor, since AWS manages the underlying infrastructure.
• Automatic scaling and high availability are built-in, reducing operational overhead.
• Simplifies DevOps pipelines since deployment often requires just code packaging and configuration.

Best suited for SMBs that want to move fast without heavy infrastructure investment.

Example: A fintech SMB building fraud-detection workflows can use Lambda + DynamoDB Streams to automate real-time checks without dedicating resources to server patching or scaling.

Containers (Amazon ECS, Amazon EKS, AWS Fargate): Containers, while more powerful, require a higher degree of management, particularly when orchestration, monitoring, and patching come into play.

Relevant features:

• Provide full visibility and control of the application environment, including networking, runtime, and scaling strategies.
• Require container orchestration (via ECS/EKS), CI/CD integration, and monitoring setup (e.g., CloudWatch, Prometheus).
• Fargate reduces some of this overhead by managing servers, but teams still need to design scaling policies and container configurations.

Better for SMBs that want fine-grained control and have or plan to build in-house DevOps expertise.

Example: A SaaS SMB delivering a multi-tenant application can use EKS with Fargate to gain control over scaling policies and runtime environments, while still offloading node management to AWS.

4. Cost efficiency at different scales

The pricing model is often a deciding factor for SMBs choosing between serverless and containers. While both approaches can be cost-effective, their efficiency depends heavily on workload patterns and scale.

Serverless (AWS Lambda, EventBridge, API Gateway): Serverless pricing is usage-based, which means SMBs only pay for what they use, down to milliseconds of execution.

Relevant features:

• No costs when functions are idle, making it ideal for sporadic or unpredictable workloads.
• Pricing is tied directly to execution time, memory, and request count.
• Eliminates the need to provision idle capacity, which helps SMBs control costs when demand is uncertain.

However, costs may scale quickly for long-running, high-volume applications due to execution limits and pricing per invocation.

Example: A marketing SMB running event-driven campaigns with bursts of API traffic can rely on Lambda + API Gateway to handle spikes cost-effectively without ongoing server costs.

Containers (Amazon ECS, Amazon EKS, AWS Fargate): Containers have a different cost profile, often becoming more efficient at steady or large scales.

Relevant features:

• Costs are based on the compute and storage resources allocated, regardless of whether the containers are fully utilized.
• More predictable for workloads with continuous or long-running demand.
• With reserved or savings plans on EC2/Fargate, SMBs can optimize for predictable workloads and reduce long-term costs.

At smaller scales, containers may introduce unnecessary fixed costs compared to serverless.

Example: A media SMB running a video processing pipeline 24/7 can achieve lower costs with ECS on EC2 Reserved Instances, rather than paying for repeated Lambda executions.

5. Balancing current complexity with future plans

The right choice between serverless and containers often depends on how an SMB balances current application complexity with future modernization goals. Both models support growth, but the starting point and trajectory matter.

Serverless (AWS Lambda, Step Functions, DynamoDB, EventBridge): Serverless is best suited for greenfield projects or modular applications that can be designed around events and AWS-managed services.

Relevant features:

• Enables faster time-to-market with minimal infrastructure overhead.
• Best for building new digital products, APIs, or automation workflows.
• Naturally aligns with event-driven architectures, making scaling and integration simpler.

Example: A fintech SMB launching a new mobile payments feature can adopt serverless to iterate quickly, integrate with third-party APIs, and scale on-demand without investing in new infrastructure.

Containers (Amazon ECS, Amazon EKS, AWS Fargate): Containers are a stronger fit for SMBs dealing with existing, complex, or legacy applications where a full rewrite to serverless isn’t practical.

Relevant features:

• Allow modernization at a controlled pace, by containerizing monolithic apps and gradually moving toward microservices.
• Provide flexibility for hybrid cloud or multi-cloud strategies.
• Offer portability for future migrations without binding entirely to serverless abstractions.

Example: A healthcare SMB with a legacy patient management system can containerize the existing application using ECS on Fargate, enabling modernization in stages while planning long-term cloud-native adoption.

Choosing between serverless and containers isn’t just a technical decision, it’s a strategic one that shapes scalability, costs, and future innovation. That is why, working with an AWS expert is essential to  avoid costly missteps. 

How does Cloudtech help SMBs modernize applications with precision?

Cloudtech helps SMBs modernize applications with strategies tailored to each workload and business goal. Its team of former AWS professionals depend on their deep cloud-native expertise to transform legacy systems into scalable, resilient, and cost-efficient architectures. 

From breaking monoliths into microservices to adopting serverless or container-based designs, Cloudtech ensures modernization aligns with growth, performance, and operational efficiency, delivering future-ready applications without unnecessary complexity or spend.

Key Cloudtech services for application modernization:

• Application assessment and modernization strategy: Cloudtech evaluates legacy applications to identify performance bottlenecks, scalability gaps, and integration challenges, then recommends modernization paths aligned with SMB business goals.
• Serverless architecture implementation: Using AWS Lambda, API Gateway, and Step Functions, Cloudtech transforms suitable workloads into event-driven functions that scale automatically, reduce operational overhead, and improve cost efficiency.
• Containerization and orchestration: Using Amazon ECS, EKS, and Fargate, Cloudtech helps SMBs migrate workloads into containerized environments, enabling microservices adoption, consistent runtime across environments, and support for long-running or stateful processes.
• Operational automation and CI/CD: Cloudtech builds automated pipelines with AWS CodePipeline, CodeBuild, and CodeDeploy, accelerating release cycles, minimizing errors, and ensuring applications are deployed consistently and reliably.
• Performance optimization and monitoring: Cloudtech continuously tunes compute, storage, and database configurations, and implements monitoring with Amazon CloudWatch, X-Ray, and Application Insights, ensuring applications run efficiently, cost-effectively, and remain highly available.

Through these capabilities, SMBs gain an AWS-architected, SMB-tailored modernization strategy. Cloudtech ensures applications are optimized for performance, scalability, and cost efficiency, while automating operational workflows, giving SMBs the confidence to innovate and grow without infrastructure bottlenecks.

See how other SMBs have modernized, scaled, and thrived with Cloudtech’s support →

Wrapping up

Half-measures in modernization can leave SMB applications slow, costly, or hard to scale, undermining business agility. Choosing the right modernization path and following AWS best practices is no longer optional, it’s essential for resilient, future-ready operations.

With Cloudtech, SMBs can modernize applications with precision. Its team designs SMB-focused modernization strategies, optimizes workloads for performance and cost, automates operational workflows, and ensures applications scale seamlessly. The result is a cloud environment that drives innovation, supports growth, and eliminates infrastructure bottlenecks.

Connect with Cloudtech today to transform your applications into agile, scalable, and efficient assets that grow with your business.

FAQs

1. Can SMBs mix serverless and containerized architectures in a single application?

‍ Yes. Many SMBs adopt a hybrid approach, using serverless for event-driven components (like API triggers or data processing) and containers for persistent or legacy services. AWS supports seamless integration via services like AWS Lambda invoking ECS tasks or sharing data through Amazon S3 and DynamoDB, enabling the best of both worlds.

2. How do deployment and scaling differ between serverless and containers?

‍ Serverless automatically scales functions in response to triggers, requiring minimal management, while containers rely on orchestration tools like Amazon ECS or EKS to scale based on predefined metrics. SMBs need to evaluate how much operational overhead they can manage versus the flexibility and control containers provide.

3. Are there specific cost considerations SMBs should be aware of?

‍ Serverless is cost-efficient for spiky or unpredictable workloads since billing is per execution, but it can become expensive for long-running or high-throughput tasks. Containers may have higher baseline costs due to always-on compute, but they offer predictable, optimized pricing for continuous workloads. Choosing the wrong model can inflate costs unnecessarily.

4. How does modernization affect existing legacy applications?

‍ Serverless often requires refactoring or breaking down applications into microservices, which may not suit tightly coupled legacy systems. Containers allow SMBs to modernize incrementally, running legacy workloads with minimal changes while gradually adopting cloud-native practices for new components.

5. What tools can SMBs use to monitor and optimize their modernized applications?

‍ AWS provides CloudWatch, X-Ray, and Application Insights for observability across both serverless and containerized workloads. These tools help SMBs track performance, detect bottlenecks, and optimize costs while ensuring applications meet uptime and scalability requirements.

‍

Nearly 40% of companies lose critical data in a cyberattack. This is a staggering number when considering what “critical” really means. It’s not just spreadsheets and documents at risk. It could be customer records, financial transactions, intellectual property, or operational systems that keep the business running day to day. For an SMB, such a loss can stall operations, erode customer trust, invite regulatory penalties, and in many cases, threaten the very survival of the business.

This is where AWS Cloud Backup becomes essential. By securely storing data in the cloud with built-in redundancy, encryption, and automated recovery options, SMBs can ensure that even if their systems are compromised, their data isn’t gone forever. 

This article explores why SMBs, particularly in sensitive sectors like healthcare and financial services, can’t afford the risks of on-premises backups, and how AWS Cloud Backup delivers the efficiency, security, and resilience needed to safeguard growth.

Key takeaways:

• AWS Backup simplifies protection by centralizing policies across workloads, eliminating the complexity of managing multiple backup tools.
• SMBs gain enterprise-grade resilience with features like automated scheduling, lifecycle management, and multi-AZ redundancy.
• Costs stay optimized through intelligent tiering, ensuring businesses don’t overpay for long-term backup storage.
• Compliance is built-in with encryption, audit reports, and retention controls that align with industry standards.
• Cloudtech adds the SMB edge by tailoring AWS Backup setups to lean budgets, automating management, and providing ongoing support for growth.

Business data is in danger: The case for AWS Backup

Cybercriminals don’t just chase big enterprises anymore. They are increasingly targeting smaller businesses precisely because they assume they’re “too small to be noticed.” But attackers think that SMBs often lack dedicated security teams, rely on outdated backup methods, and can’t afford prolonged downtime. That makes their data a soft target. 

Ransomware gangs, for example, don’t need to break into a global bank when an unpatched SMB server can yield thousands of sensitive records, and a quick payout. Add in the risk of accidental deletions, hardware failures, or natural disasters, and it’s clear. Every SMB, no matter how secure they believe themselves to be, sits on fragile ground.

Without modern cloud-based backup and recovery, a single breach or failure can mean lost customer trust, regulatory fines, or even closure.

The challenges of protecting business data include:

• Rising cyber threats: Nearly 40% of companies lose critical data in a cyberattack, and SMBs are prime targets due to smaller security budgets.
• Human error: Simple mistakes like misconfigured systems or accidental deletions can wipe out essential files, often with no easy rollback.
• Hardware & local failures: On-premises servers, disks, and tape backups remain single points of failure vulnerable to wear, outages, or disasters.
• Compliance pressures: Regulations in healthcare, finance, and other industries demand strict data retention and auditability.
• Slow recovery times: Traditional backup methods can take hours or even days to restore operations, leading to costly downtime and lost productivity.

In short, relying on outdated backup strategies exposes SMBs to unacceptable risks. AWS Backup provides a modern, cloud-native alternative that is automated, scalable, and secure, so businesses can safeguard their most valuable asset: their data.

How can SMBs set up AWS Backup to protect their data?

Traditional, on-premises backup systems weigh SMBs down with costly hardware, manual upkeep, and limited scalability. They require constant patching, monitoring, and recovery testing. These are efforts that strain lean IT teams while still leaving gaps in resilience. When disaster strikes, recovery is often slow, complex, and unreliable.

AWS Backup eliminates these barriers by delivering a fully managed, cloud-native solution. Backups are automated, centrally managed, and seamlessly integrated across AWS services like EC2, RDS, DynamoDB, and EFS. With built-in encryption, isolated backup vaults, and lifecycle policies that tier data to cost-efficient storage, SMBs gain enterprise-grade protection without the burden of infrastructure management.

Most importantly, AWS Backup makes recovery fast, predictable, and scalable. Restores can be launched directly from the console, minimizing downtime and disruption. Instead of wrestling with hardware limits or complex restores, SMBs can focus on growth, knowing their data is secure, compliant, and always recoverable.

Here’s a step-by-step guide for SMBs to set up AWS Backup in a way that’s practical:

Step 1: Define business & compliance needs

Before setting up backups, SMBs need to clarify exactly what they are protecting and why. Backup strategies are only effective when aligned with business goals, customer expectations, and compliance mandates. Skipping this step often results in overpaying for storage, gaps in protection, or backups that fail when disaster strikes.

Why this step matters:

• Prevents blind spots: By identifying all critical workloads (databases, applications, file systems, VMs), businesses ensure nothing essential slips through the cracks.
• Aligns with risk tolerance: Defining RPO and RTO helps avoid both over-engineering (wasting money) and under-protecting (risking downtime).
• Meets compliance upfront: Regulations like HIPAA, GDPR, and FINRA often require specific data retention, encryption, or recovery policies.

Key AWS tools that help with this step:

• AWS Backup: Centralizes backups for EC2, RDS, DynamoDB, EFS, and even on-premises servers via Backup Gateway.
• AWS Backup Plans: Enables SMBs to set schedules, retention rules, and lifecycle policies that map directly to recovery point (RPO) and recovery time (RTO) objectives.
• AWS Backup Audit Manager: Continuously checks backups against compliance standards such as HIPAA, GDPR, or FINRA.
• AWS Organizations & Control Tower: Extend governance across multiple accounts, ensuring consistent enforcement of backup policies.

Together, these tools ensure the backup strategy is not just technical, but also aligned with regulatory requirements and long-term business goals.

Step 2: Enable AWS Backup in the console

Once the backup requirements are defined, the next step is to activate the backup so businesses can begin protecting workloads across their environment. This step essentially “switches on” the service, giving them access to centralized policies, automation, and visibility into backups.

Why this step matters:

• Centralized control: AWS Backup unifies backup management across services like EC2, RDS, DynamoDB, EFS, and even on-prem workloads.
• Multi-region flexibility: Enabling it in all operating regions ensures business continuity, even if one region experiences disruptions.
• Foundation for automation: Without enabling the service, SMBs can’t create backup plans, enforce retention rules, or automate policies.

Steps in the AWS Management Console:

• Log in → Open the AWS Management Console and search for AWS Backup.
• Select regions → Choose the regions where critical workloads (e.g., EC2, RDS, DynamoDB, EFS) are hosted.
• Enable the service → Turn on AWS Backup in those regions to allow local policy creation and backup management.

Once enabled, AWS Backup is ready to connect with workloads and apply the backup policies that will be defined in the following steps.

Step 3: Build a backup vault

With backup enabled, the next step is to set up a backup vault, a secure container where all backup copies will be stored. Think of it as the digital equivalent of a locked safe: every backup a business creates will be organized, encrypted, and isolated here, ensuring data integrity and security.

Why this step matters:

• Secure storage: Backup vaults are always encrypted, protecting sensitive business data against unauthorized access.
• Logical separation: Different vaults can be created for production, testing, or compliance workloads, reducing the risk of accidental mix-ups.
• Compliance-ready: Vault encryption keys can be AWS-managed or customer-managed (KMS), giving SMBs flexibility to meet industry regulations like HIPAA or GDPR.

Steps in the AWS Backup Console:

• Navigate to Backup Vaults → From the AWS Backup console, select Create Backup Vault.
• Name the vault → Enter a clear, descriptive name (e.g., smb-prod-backups) for easy identification.
• Set encryption → Use the AWS-managed KMS key for simplicity, or opt for a customer-managed key if compliance frameworks (HIPAA, FINRA, GDPR, etc.) require stricter control.
• Create vault → Once finalized, this vault becomes the secure destination where all backup data will be stored.

With the vault in place, SMBs can confidently move to defining backup plans that connect workloads to this secure repository.

Step 4: Create a backup plan

Once the vault is ready, the next step is to build a backup plan. A backup plan defines the rules for when, how often, and how long the data is backed up, removing manual work and ensuring consistency. This step turns backup from a one-off task into a repeatable, automated process.

Why this step matters:

• Automation reduces risk: Eliminates human error by ensuring backups always run on schedule.
• Cost optimization: Lifecycle rules automatically move older backups to low-cost storage or expire them.
• Business continuity: Critical workloads (databases, applications, file systems) are always protected without daily manual effort.

Steps in the AWS Backup Console:

• Navigate to Backup Plans → Select Create Backup Plan.
• Choose a starting point → Use a pre-built AWS template for common workloads, or build a custom plan for specific business needs.
• Set schedules & windows → Define backup frequency (e.g., daily at midnight) and choose backup windows during off-peak hours.
• Apply lifecycle policies → Example: transition to cold storage after 30 days, delete after 1 year.
• Assign resources → Attach workloads such as EC2, RDS, DynamoDB, EFS, or S3.

Once created, AWS Backup executes the plan automatically, helping SMBs reduce manual IT tasks, maintain compliance, and ensure reliable data protection.

Step 5: Assign IAM roles & policies

Even the best backup plan is only as strong as the access controls protecting it. By configuring IAM roles and policies, SMBs ensure AWS Backup has the right permissions to perform its job while minimizing risks of misuse or unauthorized access.

Why this step matters:

• Security first: Backups often contain sensitive customer and business data, making them a prime target.
• Controlled access: Only authorized users and services should be able to view, modify, or restore backups.
• Risk reduction: Enforcing least-privilege access reduces insider threats and accidental mishandling of data.

Steps in the AWS Console:

• Create a service role → Go to IAM → Roles and add a role with the managed policy AWSBackupServiceRolePolicyForBackup so AWS Backup can perform backups and restores.
• Define user policies → Decide which team members can initiate restores, view vaults, or modify backup plans.
• Apply least privilege → Grant only the specific permissions needed for each role to reduce security risks.
• Enable logging for compliance → Use AWS CloudTrail to record every action taken on backups for auditing and regulatory reporting.

With IAM roles and CloudTrail logging in place, SMBs can maintain strong access control while ensuring backup activities remain auditable and compliant.

Step 6: Test restores (don’t skip this!)

Too many SMBs assume backups will “just work” when disaster strikes, but that assumption can be costly. The real measure of a backup strategy isn’t storing data, it’s how quickly and reliably SMBs can restore it when needed. Testing restores ensures their safety net is strong and ready.

Why this step matters:

• Backups only matter if they can be restored. Regular test restores confirm that data is intact, recovery processes work as expected, and the backup system can be trusted during a real incident.
• Successful restores ensure that critical applications and datasets can come back online within defined Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs). This reduces downtime risk and keeps day-to-day operations running with minimal disruption.
• Documented restore tests provide concrete evidence for compliance audits, regulatory reviews, and internal governance. This not only satisfies industry mandates (HIPAA, FINRA, GDPR, etc.) but also demonstrates proactive risk management to stakeholders.

Steps in the AWS Backup console:

• Select a backup job → Open the Backup console, navigate to the backup job, and choose Restore.
• Restore to a new resource → Always direct restores to a new resource (e.g., a fresh EC2 volume or test RDS instance) instead of overwriting production.
• Validate the recovery → Confirm that data integrity holds and applications dependent on the restored resource run smoothly.
• Document the process → Record steps, outcomes, and any issues. This helps train teams and provides evidence for compliance audits.

By practicing restores regularly, SMBs not only build confidence in recovery but also strengthen both resilience and compliance posture.

Step 7: Monitor & optimize

A backup strategy is never “set it and forget it.” For SMBs, ongoing monitoring and optimization ensure that backups remain compliant, cost-effective, and reliable as business needs evolve. Treat this step as continuous maintenance. Small adjustments now can prevent major headaches later.

Why this step matters:

• Compliance assurance: Proves to regulators and auditors that data retention rules are being followed.
• Cost efficiency: Prevents overspending by optimizing storage classes and retention schedules.
• Operational resilience: Catches failures early, reducing downtime risk.

Key steps in AWS:

• Enable AWS Backup Audit Manager → Continuously track adherence to defined backup policies (e.g., frequency, retention) and generate audit-ready reports for regulators or stakeholders.
• Monitor costs with AWS Cost Explorer → Analyze spending patterns to identify optimization opportunities, such as moving older backups to cold storage (S3 Glacier or Deep Archive) or adjusting retention periods.
• Set real-time alerts with Amazon CloudWatch → Receive notifications for failed, delayed, or missed backup jobs, allowing quick remediation before data exposure risks arise.
• Review lifecycle rules regularly → Revisit backup frequency, retention, and storage class transitions to maintain the right balance between availability, compliance, and cost control.

Combining compliance automation, proactive monitoring, and smart cost management allows SMBs to ensure backups remain secure, efficient, and audit-proof over time.

Final Outcome: SMBs gain a centralized, automated, and compliant backup system on AWS that cuts down on manual IT work, reduces downtime risk, and protects against data loss.

Data backup isn’t enough. SMBs also need resilience, compliance, and cost control. As an AWS Advanced Tier Partner, Cloudtech helps SMBs unlock the full potential of AWS Backup, combining certified expertise with SMB-focused strategies to ensure workloads stay protected, recoverable, and audit-ready.

How does Cloudtech help SMBs set up and maintain AWS Backup?

Protecting business-critical data in the cloud isn’t just about turning on backups, it’s about designing a resilient, compliant, and cost-efficient protection strategy. Cloudtech, as an AWS Advanced Tier Partner, helps SMBs implement AWS Backup with proven blueprints, automated policies, and ongoing monitoring that align with business goals. This ensures backups don’t just exist, but actually safeguard operations while meeting budget and compliance needs.

Key Cloudtech services for AWS Backup setup and management:

• Backup vault and plan design: Cloudtech configures vaults, lifecycle policies, and schedules that balance cost control with data retention and recovery needs.
• Role-based access and compliance: Using AWS IAM and CloudTrail, Cloudtech sets least-privilege access and audit trails, ensuring backups are secure and industry regulations are met.
• Automated monitoring and reporting: With AWS Backup Audit Manager and CloudWatch alerts, Cloudtech ensures issues are detected early and compliance reports are always audit-ready.
• Recovery testing and validation: Regular restore drills are carried out to verify backup integrity, train teams, and strengthen business continuity.
• Cost optimization: Cloudtech helps SMBs minimize storage costs by applying lifecycle policies, using cold storage for long-term data, and using AWS Cost Explorer for ongoing savings insights.

Through these services, SMBs gain not just data backups, but a resilient and compliant backup strategy that scales with their business, reduces risk, and ensures they can recover quickly when it matters most.

See how other SMBs have modernized, scaled, and thrived with Cloudtech’s support →

Wrapping up

Partnering with an AWS expert like Cloudtech ensures this isn’t just a basic backup setup, but a fully managed, compliant, and cost-optimized strategy. Cloudtech designs backup environments tailored to SMB needs, automates policies, validates recovery, and provides continuous oversight so data is always protected and always recoverable.

With Cloudtech, SMBs can move beyond fragile, expensive backup systems and embrace a cloud foundation that strengthens resilience, ensures compliance, and frees teams to focus on growth. 

Connect with Cloudtech today to build a backup strategy that’s as dynamic as your business.

FAQs

1. Can AWS Backup support both cloud-native and hybrid workloads?

‍ Yes. AWS Backup natively protects AWS resources, but it can also extend to on-premises workloads through AWS Storage Gateway, giving SMBs a unified backup strategy across hybrid environments.

2. How does AWS Backup handle data encryption?

‍ All backups are encrypted at rest using AWS Key Management Service (KMS). This ensures that sensitive business data remains secure and compliant with industry standards.

3. What’s the difference between AWS Backup and manual snapshotting?

‍ Snapshots require manual setup and tracking, while AWS Backup automates scheduling, retention, and lifecycle policies. This reduces human error, improves consistency, and saves operational time.

4. How can SMBs avoid paying for unnecessary backup storage?

‍ By setting lifecycle policies, older backups can automatically transition to lower-cost storage tiers like Amazon S3 Glacier or Glacier Deep Archive, optimizing spend without sacrificing compliance.

5. What kind of monitoring and reporting does AWS Backup provide?

‍ Through AWS Backup Audit Manager, businesses get compliance dashboards, audit-ready reports, and detailed logs to demonstrate adherence to regulations and internal policies.

‍