First, let’s understand what DRaaS is:
DRaaS stands for Disaster Recovery as a Service. It is the scenario when the service provider manages a virtual machine or a physical machine replication from the production data center to the secondary location or cloud.
In other words, the replication and hosting of a virtual or physical server to a secondary location, either to a different appliance or cloud, which is usually located at a distant site. In case of a disaster (either man-made or natural), those replicated systems and critical applications can be booted and accessed by the users of an organization.
Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) vs. Backup as a Service (BaaS):
DRaaS fails over processing to the cloud so an organization can continue to operate during a disaster. The failover notice can be automated or manual. The DRaaS operation remains in effect until IT can repair the on-premises environment and issue a failback order.
In backup as a service, an organization decides which files it will back up to a provider's storage systems. The customer organization is also responsible for setting up its RPO and RTO service levels, as well as its backup windows. A BaaS provider is only responsible for data consistency and restoring backed up copies of data. How does one choose between DRaaS and BaaS?
This depends upon the needs and requirements (RTO, RPO, and cost) of the organization.
Choose BaaS if:
· Your RTO and RPO is acceptable
· You have a Disaster Recovery Solution expert available (in-house or outsourced)
· You need a cost-effective solution
Choose DRaaS if:
· Your IT infrastructure can’t easily and quickly be rebuilt
· You use web-services or mission-critical applications that require 24/7 access by staff and/or customers
Advantages of DRaaS:
1. Easy accessibility - DRaaS essentially gives you a new data center in the cloud, thus making critical applications much more available.
2. Simplified failover testing - Failover testing is now as simple as pointing and clicking, which takes a lot of the effort (and risk) out of testing. It's obvious that if it isn’t tested regularly, it isn’t reliable.
3. Flexibility - Compared to more traditional methods of backup, DRaaS is much more flexible. The various DRaaS services offer clients more options on how to handle different business systems. Any enterprise using DRaaS solutions can select from a variety of recovery scopes, depending on the type of the disaster. These can include server failure, man-made disasters, loss of power or outage, data hampering, and much more.
4. Simplify IT Management - When your in-house IT team is tasked with the maintenance, testing and IT support associated with disaster recovery planning, they don't have the time to focus on other, critical IT functions. DRaaS simplifies IT management and frees up your IT staff to do what they do best.
5. Minimal downtime - When it comes to disaster recovery planning, you can't afford to delay implementation. With DRaaS, you won't need to wait for months while hardware installations are taking place and being tested.