Cyber attacks are increasing in frequency and sophistication each year, which means that organisations of every type cannot underestimate their adversaries, or be lax when it comes to cyber security and their ability to recover in the event of a disaster.
“This is one reason we are seeing a surge in the popularity of disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) solutions,” says Adeshni Rohit, business unit manager for Veeam at Axiz. “DRaaS solutions are becoming a compelling alternative to traditional disaster recovery solutions, and can help businesses recover from security events with minimal disruptions. Moreover, they are infinitely more flexible and scalable than their traditional data centre counterparts.”
She says in the cloud era that businesses operate in, DRaaS solutions are emerging as a cost effective way to protect information assets, and ensure the business stays up and running should they fall victim to a cyber attack. “The benefits of DRaaS are many. Increased reliability, streamlined operations, and reduced costs. It’s unsurprising that organisations are turning to these solutions for their disaster recovery needs.”
According to her, the world is becoming an ‘as-a-service’ one, and it is logical that disaster recovery is moving in that direction too. “Businesses are looking to DRaaS for many of the same benefits they get from PaaS, IaaS and SaaS. DRaaS is a much faster, automated and more reliable way to maintain operations and keep the doors open than traditional methods.
“DRaaS solutions employ data replication methods, as well as automated and orchestrated recovery, to meet disaster recovery objectives. Moreover DRaaS solutions enjoy all the benefits of public cloud, such as increased flexibility, and a pay-as-you-use model that allows the business to grow or shrink on demand. And there are none of large investments in infrastructure and other capital investments that put business off traditional disaster recovery solutions.”
DRaaS also provides a much faster, automated and more reliable recovery operation than traditional DR approaches, as it leverages the speed and high availability of the cloud. “At the same time, automated tasks free up IT administrators to focus on activities that bring greater business value,” Rohit says.
Remember, she adds, that disaster recovery is much like insurance in that it is a grudge purchase. “It is seen as a cost centre and a money drain, that adds little value, and therefore organisations are loathe to spend money on running a full disaster recovery initiative. However, DRaaS will free up those resources, and is far less expensive than running your own, on-premise solution.”
Having a third-party service provider handle disaster recovery will mean the organisation won’t have to conduct any special training, and updates and upgrades and backups will be the provider’s responsibility, again freeing up the IT department’s valuable time.
Rohit says perhaps the most compelling benefit of DRaaS, is that there is no single point of failure, as the businesses data is stored in a variety of remote locations. “If you bear in mind the incredible cost and time a recovery takes, DRaaS is definitely worth looking into.”
However, although DRaaS is a hot topic today, enterprises still find it challenging. “There is a wide variety of products available today that provide a DRaaS tool either as part of, or separate from, an overall data protection solution, often taking IT’s focus away from their existing data centre solutions. The problem is, these tools only add one more layer of management complexity, leaving organisations unsure whether or not they truly have the ability to recover in the event of a catastrophe.”
She says Veeam’s approach is different, as it defines DRaaS, by offering it one element of a comprehensive availability strategy, enabling a consistent user experience, and lowering the overall costs involved with protecting the organisation’s. “Veeam provides cost-effective and efficient, imaged-based replication for true disaster recovery. Its licensing and pricing are both simple and straightforward, it covers all possible workloads, and is application and vendor agnostic.”