Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) has become increasingly popular, as it allows businesses to replicate and host their physical or virtual servers in a third-party cloud computing environment, ensuring business continuity in the event of a natural disaster, power outage, or other disruptions.
In this article, we’ll explore the different types of DRaaS models available, as well as the difference between DRaaS and Backup as a Service (BaaS).
We’ll also discuss the best disaster recovery software options available in 2023.
Are you ready?
Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) is a service offered by a third-party vendor, enabling an organization to replicate and host their physical or virtual servers in the event of a natural disaster, power outage, or any other type of business disruption.
A service-level agreement (SLA) usually outlines the vendor’s expectations and requirements.
If a disaster occurs, the vendor offers failover to a cloud computing environment, either through a contract or pay-per-use basis. DRaaS provides an off-site disaster recovery capability, eliminating the need for maintaining secondary data centers.
This approach has made DR accessible to organizations that previously couldn’t afford it.
The DRaaS provider offers its infrastructure to serve as the customer’s DR site when a disaster is declared, including a software application or hardware appliance for replication to a private or public cloud platform.
Managed DRaaS involves the provider taking responsibility for the failover process and overseeing the failback task.
Other forms of DRaaS may require customers to manage some or all of the tasks. Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) can benefit significantly from DRaaS, which eliminates the need for in-house experts to devise and execute a DR plan.
Additionally, outsourcing infrastructure is an advantage for smaller organizations, who may find the costs of running a DR site prohibitive.
Overall, DRaaS allows an organization to back up its data and IT infrastructure in a third-party cloud computing environment, with all DR orchestration provided by the service provider through a SaaS solution, helping them regain access and functionality to their IT infrastructure after a disaster.
Speaking of service models…
There’s no doubt the Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) model has become a popular solution for organizations that want to outsource their disaster recovery planning. There are three primary models offered by DRaaS providers, as outlined by several sources.
Regardless of the model chosen, it is essential to work closely with the DRaaS provider to ensure the best possible disaster recovery plan is in place.
Are you wondering if BaaS is the same software model as DRaaS or at least if they’re somehow similar?
Well, Backup as a Service (BaaS) and Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) are both cloud-based solutions for data protection, but they have some fundamental differences.
DRaaS is designed to ensure business continuity in the event of a disaster by replicating an organization’s entire IT infrastructure in the cloud. This allows the business to continue operating even if the on-premises environment is down.
In contrast, BaaS only backs up data to a third-party provider’s storage systems, leaving the responsibility for infrastructure restoration to the organization.
The recovery time objective (RTO) and recovery point objective (RPO) for BaaS are typically measured in hours or days because it may take some time to transfer large datasets back to the organization’s data center.
In contrast, DRaaS can provide RTO and RPO in minutes or even seconds because a secondary version of the organization’s servers is ready to run on a remote site.
The costs of BaaS are significantly lower than DRaaS because it only requires storage resources for backups, while DRaaS requires additional resources, including replication software, computing, and networking infrastructure.
BaaS is often used for archiving data or records for legal purposes, but most organizations that use BaaS combine it with other disaster recovery tools to ensure business continuity.
Disaster recovery is an essential aspect of any organization’s IT strategy, and there are a variety of DRaaS providers in the market today. These providers range from companies that specialize in data protection and storage to large IT and cloud vendors.
In 2023, the best disaster recovery software options are:
Other DRaaS providers in the market include Acronis, AWS, Bios Middle East, C&W Business, Carbonite, Databarracks, Expedient, Flexential, IBM, island, Infrascale, InterVision, Net3 Technology, RapidScale, Recovery Point, Sungard Availability Services (AS), and TierPoint.
When selecting a disaster recovery solution, organizations should carefully consider their specific needs, budget, and goals to choose the option that is the best fit for them.
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