DR-as-a-Service provides infrastructure, processes and expertise in a subscription-based model.
Organizations depend upon around-the-clock availability of mission-critical IT systems — and that creates tremendous risk to the business. Disasters can and will occur, whether caused by human error, power interruptions, fire, water damage or weather-related events. The disruption to operations can be devastating.
According to a recent study by the Ponemon Institute, unplanned outages in U.S. data centers cost organizations just over $7,900 per minute on average in 2013, up 41 percent from 2010. The average incident lasted 86 minutes, resulting in an average cost per incident of roughly $690,000. Total data center outages had an average recovery time of 119 minutes and cost more than $900,000. Survey respondents reported an average of two complete data center outages during the preceding two years.
Despite the high cost of downtime, many organizations still lack an effective disaster recovery (DR) platform. Traditionally, DR requires investments in an offsite IT infrastructure that sits idle until needed. DR processes are often implemented manually, requiring numerous complex steps to allocate recovery resources, perform system and data recovery, and validate that systems are ready for use.
Virtualization can help reduce the cost of setting up a DR site, improve reliability and automate many DR processes. However, DR is still expensive and difficult to implement and maintain, even in highly virtualized environments.
Those challenges have driven growing use of DR-as-a-Service (DRaaS) solutions. DRaaS is a cloud model that provides a robust DR platform in a subscription-based offering. The value proposition is so compelling that Research and Markets projects 52 percent year-over-year growth of the DRaaS market through 2019. Markets and Markets and TechNavio expect the DRaaS market to grow from about $1.5 billion in 2015 to as much as $14 billion by 2020.
Removing Overhead, Adding Expertise
Legacy DR solutions require organizations to duplicate the entire production infrastructure and associated operational processes, putting fast and reliable DR out of the reach of all but the largest enterprises. Virtualization reduces the number of servers required for recovery and enables data replication and failover across different types of equipment. However, it still requires organizations to purchase equipment and dedicate IT resources to maintain that equipment and manage the DR solution.
DRaaS shifts this overhead to a third-party service provider. There is no hardware or software to purchase or data center space to acquire, making it especially well-suited to organizations that do not have a second data center for DR.
Infrastructure is only part of the picture, however. While organizations can leverage cloud-based Infrastructure-as-a-Service solutions for data synchronization and failover to a third-party DR site, they are still responsible for the operational aspects of DR. DRaaS, in contrast, adds multiple layers of services, including DR planning and testing, real-time data replication, data security, and ongoing management and support.
As with anything delivered “as-a-Service,” customers benefit from the service provider’s economies of scale and specialized expertise. In fact, expertise is one of the primary advantages of DRaaS, particularly for small to midsize businesses (SMBs) that tend to lack in-house capabilities.
“Cloud-based disaster recovery services have emerged rapidly as both small and large businesses look for a cost-effective way to ensure that data is protected and business activities can continue in the event of a disruption,” said Phil Goodwin, Research Director, Data Protection, Availability and Recovery at IDC. “Key provider capabilities include simple implementation, a range of on-demand service options and high-level professional services to assist IT organizations in a successful DR deployment.”
Due Diligence
Because everything is handled by the service provider’s specialists, DRaaS increases confidence in DR processes and allows IT resources to be redirected toward other initiatives. DRaaS also enables faster recovery — the service provider should have best practices and experienced personnel who can quickly activate and manage failover and failback processes.
These capabilities vary widely, however, and organizations should do due diligence in selecting a DRaaS provider. Key considerations include recovery time objectives (RTOs), recovery point objectives (RPOs) and SLAs. If regulatory compliance is a factor, organizations should look for a provider that stores data only in a Type 2 SSAE 16/SOC 1-certified data center and follows applicable operational standards.
Geographic diversity is also important. Organizations should select a service provider close enough to their production data centers for effective data replication yet far enough away that a regional disaster won’t affect both the production and DR sites. The service provider should have remote access capabilities so that personnel can administer the site if weather, pandemic or other circumstances prevent travel to the data center.
Organizations should also use the migration to DRaaS to review their DR plans and ensure they are in close alignment with business objectives. Instead of focusing on protecting individual systems and data, IT teams can work with a knowledgeable DRaaS provider to develop an enterprise-class DR plan that considers critical dependencies within the environment.
Traditional DR models won’t meet today’s demanding business and regulatory requirements. It’s not enough to replicate data and failover servers — organizations need a proactive solution that is always ready when needed and enables the business to continue to operate seamlessly.
For many organizations running applications in a virtual or cloud infrastructure, DRaaS offers an alternative that is less complex, faster to implement and more affordable than traditional DR. It relieves the capital investments and management challenges typically associated with DR while helping to minimize business disruptions.
