What is Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS)?

Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service, or DRaaS, allows organizations to back up their data and IT infrastructure in a third-party cloud computing environment. It offers full orchestration of disaster recovery (DR) through software as a service (SaaS) to rebuild the functioning and accessibility of the IT infrastructure after a disaster. Disaster Recovery Plans (DRP) or Business Continuity Plans (BCP) are often provided in combination with DRaaS. DRaaS is also called Business Continuity-as-a-Service (BCaaS). DDRaaS is a solid addition to vCloud Director, providing disaster recovery and data protection.

The following are the most significant benefits of Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service (DRaaS):

Scalability is a fundamental advantage of cloud services over on-premises physical infrastructures. You’ll want your DR options to grow with your organization when you want to expand. This can be extremely challenging with an on-premise disaster recovery system for a number of reasons. A non-cloud-based DR system requires a certain amount of physical space to build and expand.

Buying the appropriate equipment will be expensive when you scale up. You can constantly analyze your needs with DRaaS, changing and growing your system. You can cover as many virtual machines, storage locations, sites, and databases as you need by using DRaaS. And you can do it for a much lower price.

Internal DR systems are susceptible to hacker attacks, as many companies have learned the hard way in recent years, putting sensitive and vital data at risk of exposure. You’ll have the most secure data infrastructure backup with a cloud-based disaster recovery system from a private provider, as many now come with essential encrypted data storage.

One characteristic that DRaaS shares with other cloud-based platforms is flexibility. You can choose the operating systems, platforms, management systems, and backup tools that are most effective for you under DRaaS, which will not limit you to any particular server, database, backup, or network technology. In addition, it will allow you to select recovery destinations and options, such as restoring specific files or an entire system. To develop a solution that meets the demands of your particular business, you can select a service that allows you to use resources as and when you need them.

Various expensive hardware components often form internal DR systems. DRaaS provides the same disaster recovery capabilities at a pay-as-you-go price that is significantly lower than the cost of building a cumbersome on-premise solution.

In addition, having DRaaS offsite can result in significant savings because it will allow your organization to resume operations much faster in the event of an IT failure, which can be very costly for a business even for a short time. interruption. The most significant benefit of using an external service is that it will save your company money in the long run by eliminating the need to hire an IT team to manage an internal system.

Reduce manual operations with automation and orchestration. This allows for relatively immediate failover and better recovery time with prioritized applications and virtual machines running correctly at all times.

Your organization will have access to the controls necessary to monitor and safeguard your critical data through DRaaS, helping IT infrastructure comply with essential compliance and regulatory standards. With DRaaS, your business can demonstrate to regulators, auditors, and customers where your data is hosted, who manages and accesses it, who supports it, and how—all within a single graphical user interface. Modern security measures and the additional advantages of a cloud-based service make this possible.

Use automated failover procedures to save staff time, or call your DRaaS provider just once. This allows workers to focus on revenue-generating projects rather than disaster recovery management and preparation.

Disaster recovery planning is essential to ensure business continuity. Numerous disasters with the potential to destroy an IT organization have become more common in recent years. A DRaaS system can efficiently mitigate the severity of disasters such as cyber attacks, hardware/software failures, power outages, and natural disasters.

The DRaaS provider provides the infrastructure that serves as the customer’s disaster recovery site when disaster strikes. The provider’s service often includes a software application or hardware appliance that can copy data and virtual machines to the provider’s private or public cloud.

The third-party DRaaS provider also offers failover to a cloud computing environment through a contract or pay-per-use. DRaaS requirements and expectations are laid out in a service level agreement (SLA). This makes it possible for the provider to carry out the disaster recovery plan even in the worst case scenario: a complete or near complete shutdown of the affected organization. In a natural disaster, an outside provider is less likely to suffer direct and immediate impact than the affected business.

Even after the many benefits of deploying Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS), you should be aware of some potential risks or drawbacks. The main disadvantage of DRaaS is that it outsources the cost and labor of disaster recovery. The client must trust and have faith in their service provider to correctly carry out the business continuity and disaster recovery plan and maintain the agreed SLA as soon as they become aware of the disaster. Customers trust the ability of the DRaaS provider to offer sufficient security.

Another potential risk of DRaaS is the need for more bandwidth. DRaaS providers can manage intermittent DR occurrences, but most providers should be able to perform recovery operations for all of their clients simultaneously.

Selecting the right Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) provider for your business is critical to achieving the desired results. Even if the service could be advantageous, choosing the wrong provider will lead to problems. Leading DRaaS providers protect your data and allow quick access to it after a disaster, eliminating the need to maintain storage equipment.

Before selecting a DRaaS provider, think about how you will integrate your hosting infrastructure with your IT requirements. The following are essential considerations when selecting a DRaaS provider for your organization:

In a major disaster, the resources and capacity of the disaster recovery service provider are known. Most DRaaS solutions are built by public cloud providers, although even public clouds occasionally experience outages. Learn about your contractual rights and how your company will react and recover in each case. The most likely scenario is that the DRaaS provider will meet its commitments, but will have to catch up on its SLAs.

The cloud backup service must have sufficient bandwidth and resources to effectively manage the data transfer.

The following factors will affect how quickly your DRaaS provider can get you back up and running:

RTO (Recovery Time Objective): The amount of time before a crisis affects the Business Community Plan (BCP). effects

To keep these goals close to zero, you’ll need to locate a provider that provides rapid recovery while adhering to an ongoing data protection model.

Before choosing, it’s essential to confirm that the DRaaS providers and cloud backup options meet your organization’s compliance needs. The following are the most crucial factors to consider:

The FBI and state offices initiated Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS), a project that identifies ways to keep criminal records, fingerprint records, and other data obtained by law enforcement organizations secure.

Healthcare organizations must comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which sets requirements to protect sensitive patient data.

The Statement on Standard for Type II Attestation Engagements 16 (SSAE Type II) is a seal of approval from qualified auditors. Verifies that a company has adhered to appropriate controls over financial reporting (SOC 1) and has done so successfully over a specified period (SOC 2).

Disasters can be regional. As such, the cloud data center must be far enough away from the company that employs it to ensure recovery capabilities.

DRaaS is a great option if you are a small to medium business (SMB) or a growing organization that needs flexibility or more internal resources or bandwidth to handle this software or hardware. DRaaS allows you to avoid the excessive financial and operational expenses of building, equipping and managing another data center. If these services are included in your SLA, a DRaaS provider can virtualize your infrastructure to reduce storage needs and handle data backup, security, and disaster recovery.