According to a report published by Transparency Market Research, the market for Data Protection as a Service (DPaaS) is expected to reach $46 billion by 2024. What is DPaaS, and how does it compare to the well-established backup and DR markets? Are they the same? Let’s start with a broader picture. There are three basic levels of data protection: Offsite backup, disaster recovery, and data protection as a service. Offsite backup traditionally means taking drives and storing them somewhere else, such as your own data center, a third-party data center, or a place like Iron Mountain. Disaster recovery means replicating your production infrastructure to a second site that’s far enough away so it’s unaffected by disasters such as weather, human error, or technology failures, and then failing over to that site if your production goes down for any reason. You choose the time frame you need (RTO) to fail over to and still maintain business continuity. If you use Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS), the power of the cloud is used to spin up your recovery site more quickly than restoring to cold hardware. DPaaS is different. It specifically protects the data within your application(s), at the application and database layers. For example, if you make…
A key component of a successful disaster recovery plan is testing it. Testing once a year is usually not enough, and you’ll want to make sure you can run a proper failover when you need to. A failover is when you move from one environment to another. In disaster recovery terminology, it’s used to mean the transfer from a production environment to a recovery one. A failover is a huge process, and there are many complications that can arise from it. It’s not just the data you need to move over, it’s your whole environment. That means all of the applications that host it, any replication products, and making sure everything is running from both ends. The process can take hours and must be monitored carefully. That’s why it’s so important to run a couple of test failovers to make sure everything is working properly. The last thing you need is to find out in the middle of an emergency that your systems didn’t transfer correctly. Why should you run a test failover? Running a test failure has many benefits. It allows you to configure everything such as your user access and network settings how you would like, and it makes sure…
In a previous post, I outlined the complexities of your disaster recovery infrastructure. There is a LOT to think about, and for many decision makers, the whole process can be overwhelming and feel a lot like you’re at sea with no life jacket. But there is help at hand. The key is finding an expert – whether a partner, full service provider, or industry guru – who has built and continues to manage complex primary and DR infrastructures. Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) products will ease the expense and time constraints on your IT department, freeing them up for other priorities. There are three key points you should look for when canvasing potential partners and services: Leverage economy of scale: Besides the cost of 2N infrastructure to support full operational capacity, you will also need to acquire the replication technologies making the configuration and data redundancy possible. As a small or medium size business, your options for DIY will be limited by the cost of high-level technology. Can you afford it? Maybe – bearing the full cost of such technologies for only the slice you need is wasteful, but with a service provider you can leverage their buying power to acquire only…
