Some observers believe DRaaS will be the killer app for cloud computing, and the numbers seem to support this contention.
As shown in Figure 1 from our report, Disaster Recovery as a Service May Be In Your Future, disaster recovery is the single most important reason why organizations are adopting infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS). Among organizations that are using or planning to use IaaS, about 60% plan to use the services for disaster recovery.
The ability to recover from scheduled or unscheduled downtime is becoming more affordable due to an increasing number of disaster-recovery-as-a-service (DRaaS) providers. Over the past 18 months, the number and scope of DRaaS options has grown, and more managed service providers are building out cloud-based disaster recovery service operations with varying costs and capabilities.
We recommend IT professionals in small and midsize companies in particular should scrutinize their present business continuity plan and assess whether they can take advantage of these advances and ensure their businesses are protected and positioned correctly. To help IT executives under their options, the full report covers the key components of a DRaaS solution, the advantages and disadvantages of cloud-based disaster recovery, and key vendors in this growing market.
Microsoft, for one, considers DRaaS a key stepping stone to its IaaS offering, prompting it last year to launch an extensive portfolio of cloud-based disaster recovery options. Peak 10, a Microsoft partner, is another vendor with a large presence in DRaaS. The hosting and managed service provider has 25 data centers in nine regions to serve enterprises with demanding recovery time objectives. Some applications cannot tolerate even small outages and need the rapid recovery capabilities Peak 10 offers. Other DRaaS service providers with various capabilities include Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Acronis International GmbH, ArcServe, IBM, Asigra, Nasuni, Symantec, Veeam, Zerto, Unitrends, and CommVault.
This Research Byte is a brief overview of our report on this subject, Disaster Recovery as a Service May Be In Your Future. The full report is available at no charge for Computer Economics clients, or it may be purchased by non-clients directly from our website (click for pricing).