What is Disaster Recovery as a Service?

40% of companies close shop after a disaster strikes, and for those that don’t, only 29% survive past the second year, according to a Forbes article.

10:33 24 October 2019

Advancements in technology have enabled companies to overcome numerous challenges and operate smoothly. Sadly, some disasters such as fires, large scale-cyber attacks, floods, and earthquakes may be too catastrophic for a business to handle.

Find out here how to overcome a disaster with your business (Source: Pixabay)

Fortunately, solutions are continuously being developed to enable organizations to recover from disasters in a quicker, easier, and less costly way. One of the options, labeled as Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service (DRaaS), is a solution that may help your business get through an unplanned interruption. Here is what you need to know about DRaaS.

What is DRaaS?

When it comes to safeguarding your data and applications against disasters, DRaaS is a champion among disaster recovery solutions. But what exactly is disaster recovery as a service? It is a comprehensive third-party service that involves replicating and backing up of data and applications using the cloud and on-premises resources.

The purpose of DRaaS is to create a complete shadow of your production system in a separate infrastructure. It allows a company to fully restore its vital production environment data whenever an outage occurs, and resume business operations seamlessly. The pricing is offered as an ongoing subscription, and the terms and details of the service are laid out in the service-level agreement, which is the contract between the customer and provider.

DRaaS Advantages

By partnering with an expert third party supplier, your company can get to enjoy many benefits. First, adopting a DRaaS is cost-effective compared to investing and maintaining your own physical backup environment. It is a flexible solution with predictable costs since you only pay for what you use. It allows scalability; therefore, it can suit the needs and budget of any business.

When it comes to recovery time, the period is dramatically shortened since you already have a secondary identical infrastructure, which can be quickly put to use in the event of a disruption. This way, your operations will experience almost zero downtime. If you already have a disaster recovery plan in place, a DRaaS can help to cover less-important or newly acquired applications.

DRaaS Disadvantages

Sadly, DRaaS doesn’t mitigate all the work involved in disaster recovery. You may still need an IT expert to help you plan for recovery, to monitor and test whether the plan is working, and to update things whenever there is an organizational change. If your DRaaS’ data center is located in your region, it could be taken out by a natural disaster, leading to loss of all your backup data. Also, in case of a disaster, your company is at the mercy of the provider to respond appropriately.

How to Pick a DRaaS Provider

Despite some challenges, many organizations are opting to go for DRaaS solutions. When it comes to choosing a provider, the process isn’t so straightforward. You need to do your legwork and weigh your options carefully. Start by looking for a provider who has the capacity to provide full functionality of your critical systems in case a major disaster in your region. Keep in mind that other customers too will need the provider’s support at that time.

Here are some tips on how to choose your DRaaS provider (Source: Pixabay)

Ask the potential provider what measures they have put to protect their own infrastructure against threats. Inquire about the total cost of the service, and the processes involved to implement backup and recovery. Also, go through all the details of the service-level agreement to make sure you are signing the right deal.

Summary

There is no doubt that disaster recovery as a service is essential. Companies that are caught by a disaster without a comprehensive recovery solution are likely to suffer irreversible damage. To guard your company’s data and applications against every day and non-every day threats, consider DRaaS.