We all thought it wouldn’t happen, but it did. After Hurricane Maria ravaged the Island, many local businesses were left wondering ‘why’, but more importantly, ‘what now’? Buildings were destroyed, power was gone and what’s probably most devastating for local companies, billions of dollars worth of data were lost. Never before had the need for data security and data recovery been more evident, but still, most business owners and CTOs aren’t quite familiar with the concept of Disaster Recovery as a Service (aka DRaaS).
What is Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS)?
Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) is the safe replication and hosting of your physical and virtual servers by a third party (that would be us) to provide the convenience of failover in the event of a man-made or natural catastrophe. It’s majorly convenient! DRaaS offers simplicity, rapid recovery, and lower costs (both in terms of infrastructure and administrative overhead).
Just as important, replicating your backups and other key resources in geographically disparate data centers also means they won’t be wiped out by local disasters. Because your data and VMs are replicated to the cloud, failing over production systems in the cloud takes minutes… even if your server is underwater.
How does it work?
Think of Disaster Recovery as a Service as your safe within a safe. Your data is constantly stored and backed up in the cloud, to safeguard your most vital information, help with oh-so-tedious versioning and safely restore your data structure in case of any blackout.
DRaaS uses a cloud provider’s computers, networking, and storage capabilities to act as the target site. This is where your company’s critical data and applications can be replicated and recovered if the unexpected happens. If your computer gets stolen, another hurricane hits or any other outage wipes out your systems, there is a safe and reliable system that can not only protect your data but have you back in ‘business-as-usual’ mode in no time.
What’s new about it?
Before our partner Infrascale launched this turnkey, accessible product, DR solutions were reserved almost exclusively for corporations with massive data and IT budgets that could host their own complex, off-site structures. The folks at Infrascale have bridged that gap by giving the power back to the client, providing you with your own appliance and with a price that can even be met by single-member consulting businesses (yes, even doctors and lawyers can afford this!)
The time to think about DRaaS is now
For when the unexpected occurs, it’s important to have a plan B and be extremely proactive, instead of the usual after-the-fact approach many of us take. Thinking ahead and getting started with DRaaS is a great step to take for the short and long term goals of your business. Having a safe, reliable data security solution allows you to smoothly restore operations, keep employees productive and avoid disruption with your clients, no matter what happens.
We can’t control the weather (heck, we can’t even control if our own employees accidentally damage our equipment), but data integrity is one less thing to worry about. Let’s talk and start uncovering all the ways DRaaS can help your business achieve the stability and data security it deserves, giving you the peace of mind needed to carry on with the rest of your awesome business. Email us to get started.
