Disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) offers a variety of services, including hosting, data replication, and recovery – all managed in the cloud to reduce the impact of a power outage, natural disaster, or ransomware attack. All applications, data, and infrastructure are backed up in the cloud using multiple data centers over a wide geographical region. If a natural disaster occurs, the company can utilize the data center in another geographical location for backup.
The Key Benefit of DRaaS
The major draw to DRaaS for companies of all sizes is its ability to shift disaster recovery to a cloud services provider and make the same disaster recovery tools available to small businesses that used to be reserved for larger corporations.
When high-profile disasters hit the headlines, it’s easy to see the need for improved disaster recovery. Events like Hurricane Sandy and wildfires in the west highlight the need for utilizing data centers in a different geographical location. And it’s not just natural disasters: cyber attacks point to the necessity of DRaaS also.
Outages are also costly. In 2020, a survey conducted by the Uptime Institute found that one third of respondents had experienced a major outage in the past year, and one in six mentioned that an outage had come with a price tag of over $1 million.
That number only applies if the company reopens; FEMA reports that when organizations experience a natural disaster, 43% never reopen.
The considerations become more compelling when including the pandemic into the circumstances impacting disaster recovery. Many companies were forced to reorganize or reduce IT teams, and many utilized DRaaS to ease the pressure on teams and move disaster recovery from a capital expenditure to an operating expense.
Overarching all of these contributing factors is the growth of data, with many businesses basing all mission-critical processes on data reliability. Traditional data backup, with operating, onsite, and offsite copies of data, no longer seems to be enough. Weekly or monthly backups used to be considered reasonable, but a month of lost data would be hard to overcome.
Moving data to a DRaaS provider not only improves backup costs, but also allows for continuous backups in a geographically dispersed model.
Three Options for DRaaS Implementation
There are three models to choose from when implementing DRaaS:
Managed DRaaS
In this model, the entire disaster recovery process is handled by the service provider. The provider protects infrastructure, on-premise servers, hybrid systems, and cloud solutions. They also handle testing, operations, validation, management, and maintenance, as well as the failover process in a disaster.
Assisted DRaaS
The assisted model allows businesses more control in the disaster recovery process, with hands-on involvement in integration and testing. This may be a good fit for companies that have a highly specialized or customized set of applications, equipping them with a DRaaS provider that steps in when assistance is required.
DIY DRaaS
This option offers the advantages of offsite replication and cloud hosting, but the company is entirely responsible for managing failover and the steps to develop a response – including integration, validation, and testing.
If your company is struggling to balance the concerns of disaster recovery with the other areas your IT or security teams must handle, contact us at Independent Connections. We can help you determine what level of DRaaS is right for your company and guide you to the right provider based on your priorities and requirements.