DRaaS is a type of cloud computing and backup service that uses a number of cloud-based resources to safeguard business applications and data from potential disruptions and downtimes caused by man-made or natural disasters. Let’s take a closer look at disaster recovery as a service and how it can impact your business.
In a nutshell, Disaster Recovery as a service provides companies with the ability to perform total system backups, which in turn enables business stability and continuity in the event of a system failure. This is typically offered by cloud service firms as part of a disaster recovery plan (DRP) or business continuity plan. In the event of a primary system repair – or downtime – DraaS will serve as your new IT infrastructure, which will enable your organisation to continue its day-to-day processes without any interruptions. This can, essentially, minimise loss of revenue.
Additionally, DRaaS also allows business applications to run seamlessly via virtual machines at any time, regardless of whether there’s a disaster or not.
The service is also available to companies that makes use of on-premise IT solutions, thereby making DRaaS a more practical platform to test various cloud computing processes. In short, this means that IT staff can easily replicate their system via the cloud without discarding or compromising their existing on-premise system.
With disaster recovery, organisations are free to backup their IT infrastructure and do whatever they need to perform processes, including testing, troubleshooting, and development processes.
How does disaster recovery as a service differ from backup as a service?
Disaster recovery services failover processing to the cloud to allow companies to carry on daily operations even during a disaster. An automated or manual option is available for the failover notice. And the DRaaS operation continues to stay in effect until IT personnel finish the repairs of the on-premise systems and issue a failback order.
With backup as a service, on the other hand, the client company decides which business data, files, and applications to backup to the service provider’s storage systems. Moreover, the client is responsible for setting up their own Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO) service levels, including the backup windows.
In a cloud backup service, the provider’s only responsibility is maintaining data consistency and restoring backed up copies of relevant business data.
The advent of cloud technology has completely disrupted the world of business and how companies handle software systems, big data, and applications. Cloud computing services have changed the way organisations backup their IT infrastructure. But is cloud technology the best option for every type of business? And will this type of service make sense to your company?
Old school standard for backing up important company data
If you’re born before the 1980s, the old school standard for backing up data for you may be the tape. For the sake of simplifying the subject, let’s instead focus on the technology that came immediately after the tape: the disc.
It might be retro, but when used to its full potential, disks were often considered the center of a complete data protection approach that features backup and recovery optimization. It also simplified the day-to-day data management processes. There were three main advantages of this old school data backup method:
- Disks are reliable in the most fundamental way
Any system has the possibility of failing, regardless of how secure or stable you might think it is. But when the inevitable happens, you want a disaster recovery solution that’s dependable. And that’s what disks offered.
Data protection systems, such as Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID), and the ability to perform in-house monitoring of all crucial data in your IT infrastructure are among the main reasons why this old school data backup system gained the reputation of being reliable.
As an example, imagine you’re in the manufacturing industry: today, this industry relies heavily on computer data and software applications for automation and day-to-day operations. If something happens to your current IT infrastructure, all you need to do is to get IT staff to take out the data recovery disks and restore all the data. You’re back in business.
- Disks offer versatile functionality
Disks are highly versatile, especially when used to its full potential. This versatility allows IT managers and personnel to further optimise their backup and data recovery solutions by simply incorporating a wide range of features.
Through duplication, which is what backing up data to a disk essentially is, companies can save a significant amount of time and space by eliminating redundancies in their datasets during the backup process.
- Disks deliver quality performance
Disk-based data backup solutions are known for delivering high marks in the performance department. This is due to the fact that the system reads and writes data at impressive speeds, which allow for faster backups and recoveries.
Disk-based systems had a long and successful life as data backup solutions. However, they are limited to the integrity and the condition of the disks themselves. This means that regular maintenance is still necessary – to avoid scratches or any damage to the disk itself – which can result in possible data loss during backup or recovery processes.
The benefits of Disaster Recovery as a Service
- Quick and Easy Deployment
One of the key advantages of cloud-based services is that they mostly don’t require users to install any kind of software to deploy or implement the service. All the company must do is subscribe to the vendor’s service – after that, you can have your system up and running in mere minutes.
Moreover, many DRaaS firms offer mobile-based applications that are compatible with Android and iOS. These lightweight apps will enable customer organisations to connect, sync, and manage their backup and recovery process via their mobile devices – anytime, anywhere.
- It provides flexibility and scalability
DRaaS offer the flexibility that is absent in traditional backup and recovery systems. Its ability to eliminate physical capacity problems that often bog down old school solutions is one of the many things that make cloud services to appealing to SMEs.
Scalability is another clear advantage to using cloud-based disaster recovery services. With more traditional solutions, scaling can be a costly and time-consuming endeavour. Many cloud providers offer extra services for additional fee, it’s easy to scale up or down the service to match your exact requirements.
- An incredibly cost-effective disaster recovery solution
Investing in a traditional old school backup and recovery IT infrastructure requires quite a hefty upfront capital. The expensive hardware and software systems, the custom apps and so on, can sum up to significant expenditures for SMEs.
With DRaaS, upfront costs are often much more affordable. This makes it a great option for SMEs on a tight budget or businesses in a growth spurt. The overall cost of ownership, so long as the customer company chooses the right cloud solution, is quite affordable as well. And since cloud vendors offer predictable pricing models, managing costs can be a lot simpler and more convenient as well.
- It offers enhanced data security and protection
Remember when one of the major concerns of organisations when it comes to cloud computing solutions, especially DRaaS, was the security of the service itself? Given that disaster recovery is the main point here; can you really depend on cloud-based systems to backup and restore important business data?
As a matter of fact, data security and protection has more to do with the capabilities and the resources of the service provider rather than cloud technology itself. Anything that’s uploaded online or stored in the cloud is inherently at risk of being illegally accessed or lost. Essentially, it’s all about finding the right provider that’s capable of protecting your data.
The best DRaaS providers on the market are fully capable of delivering enterprise-grade security measures, from standard security systems like firewalls and anti-virus software to multi-factor authentication. Leveraging the cloud service for supplemental purposes is already providing organisations with an excellent data protection strategy.
Is it time to implement Disaster Recovery as a service?
Have you now decided to implement better IT infrastructure to safeguard your company from disaster? Great!
However, finding the right solution and provider for you can be tricky. It’s necessary not just to consider the internal factors of the business – such as the company’s size, industry and required outcome – but external factors as well. These external factors can include customer need, economic demands, environmental possibilities and supplier deviations. With all this to consider, how do you find the best solution for you?
YourShortlist can provide you with non-chargeable advice from our team of dedicated experts that can help you find the right infrastructure for you – thereby reducing your risk of being ruined by disaster. Simply get in touch with our experts on our contact page.