Demystifying DRaaS: Your Comprehensive Guide

Due to recent advances in immutable snapshot technology, companies that provide Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) can also now provide DRAAS solutions as an affordable option for mid-market Enterprise. Nfina’s implementation of DR successfully implements the recovery portion of the NIST Cyber-Security Standard. This significantly reduces recovery time objectives (RTOs) and ensures that the business can resume operations within minutes rather than hours or days. 

One of the main benefits of DRaaS is its flexibility. Unlike traditional disaster recovery solutions that require costly infrastructure investments and complex setups, DRaaS solutions eliminate these requirements by leveraging cloud computing technology. This means that businesses no longer must worry about managing physical hardware or maintaining backup servers at off-site locations. Instead, they can simply pay for the services they need based on their specific requirements. 

DRaaS also eliminates the risk associated with managing complex disaster recovery processes internally. The responsibility falls on the DRaaS provider who has expertise in handling disaster recovery situations effectively. They use advanced technologies like continuous data protection (CDP), virtualization techniques like hypervisors or containers along with automated failover procedures to ensure minimal disruptions during a disaster. 

Disaster recovery as a service relies upon the geographic redundant replication of data far enough away from the primary site so as not to be affected by the disaster. In most instances, 600-1000 miles away is often recommended as a best practice for this purpose. When the infrastructure goes down (for whatever the reason), the business needs to recover lost data from a second location where the data is backed up. 

A backup is a very crude form of disaster recovery, but its RPO (Recovery Point Objective) is usually insufficient for most organizations to avoid financial losses. This is because the typical backup schemes are very compute and I/O intensive and can only be run daily (typically after hours) and will result in subsequent data loss (up to 24 hours) if restoration is necessary. 

For a disaster recovery process to work efficiently and minimize data loss, the system should be designed to duplicate compute and storage resources and keep them synchronized with an active-active replication scheme to minimize downtime. This active-active scheme must also be reversable to maintain maximum protection while running out of the DR site.  

2. Automated Failover: In case of an outage or disaster scenario, DRaaS solutions offer automated failover capabilities that allow for seamless transition to backup systems without any disruption to business operations. This ensures minimal downtime and maximum uptime for your business.

3. Flexible Recovery Options: DRaaS providers offer flexible recovery options depending on the specific needs of your business. These options include full system restores, file-level restores, or virtual machine snapshots.

4. Scalability: As your business grows, so does the amount of data you generate and store. A reliable DRaaS solution should be able to scale with your business needs without compromising on performance or security.

5. Testing and Monitoring: To ensure the effectiveness of your disaster recovery plan, regular testing and monitoring are essential. Most DRaaS providers offer automated testing and monitoring services to ensure that your systems are constantly backed up and ready for any disaster.

6. Multi-Platform Support: In today’s digital landscape, businesses often use a combination of on-premises and cloud-based systems. A good DRaaS solution should be able to support multi-platform environments to cover all aspects of your business.