Disaster Recovery as Service (DRaaS) is a managed solution that lets companies get their infrastructure and applications up and running in the event of a disaster. It provides cost-effective, scalable, and automated protection that allows for faster recovery than traditional backup solutions.
Companies of every size need a way to recover from any disruption that stops business operations. Without a well-designed disaster recovery plan, companies can suffer from reduced productivity, lost customers and revenue, out-of-budget expenses and reputational damage. A key element of any successful DR plan is ensuring that mission-critical data and applications can be restored quickly, which means prioritizing a set of workloads.
Most organizations don’t have the resources to develop, test and implement a comprehensive DR plan in-house. Creating a second, remote infrastructure with all of the hardware, power, cooling and storage required to run a backup system is expensive. Then there’s the time needed to monitor and troubleshoot backups, which must be tested regularly. These tasks require specialized technical skills that most IT teams don’t have on staff.
With DRaaS, an MSP delivers a virtual or physical cloud-based replica of an organization’s production systems to a third-party datacenter. Then when a disaster occurs, the MSP handles the failover of users to the remote environment so they can continue working as normal. Once the primary datacenter is up and running again, the MSP restores any changes that occurred at the DR site to the production environment – with no loss of information.
DRaaS solutions are designed to make it easy for businesses with lean IT teams to take advantage of the benefits of a DR plan. By handing over the responsibility of implementing, testing and managing a DR plan to an MSP, businesses can save money and focus on more strategic projects.
Many DRaaS providers offer a variety of services and features, so it’s important to check out the specifics before making a choice. For example, some providers have a minimum recovery time objective (RTO) for all workloads, while others may prioritize certain applications over others. You’ll also want to verify that the DRaaS provider offers uptime guarantees.
Managed DRaaS provides a turnkey disaster recovery solution for businesses of all sizes. The provider will handle all aspects of planning, executing and monitoring a DR plan to ensure that users are redirected to the secondary environment when a disaster strikes. It’s also important to check out the support options for DRaaS. Many providers provide support via email or phone, while others have dedicated help desk personnel to assist with troubleshooting and other needs.
Choosing the right DRaaS solution depends on a number of factors, including your budget and the level of support you need from a DR vendor. If you are considering DRaaS, start by talking to your current IT partners and finding out what their experience is with it. They can help you understand the pros and cons of different DRaaS models, and answer any questions that you might have.