Disaster Recovery as a Service

What is Unitellas disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS)?

Unitellas disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) is a cloud computing service model that allows an organization to back up its data and IT infrastructure in a third party cloud computing environment and provide all the DR orchestration, all through a SaaS solution, to regain access and functionality to IT infrastructure after a disaster. The as-a-service model means that the organization itself doesn’t have to own all the resources or handle all the management for disaster recovery, instead relying on the service provider.

Using DRaaS to prepare for a disaster

True DRaaS mirrors a complete infrastructure in fail-safe mode on virtual servers, including compute, storage and networking functions. An organization can continue to run applications—it just runs them from the service provider’s cloud or hybrid cloud environment instead of from the disaster-affected physical servers. This means recovery time after a disaster can be much faster, or even instantaneous. Once the physical servers are recovered or replaced, the processing and data is migrated back onto them. Customers may experience higher latency when their applications are running from the cloud instead of from an on-site server, but the total business cost of downtime can be very high, so it’s imperative that the business can get back up and running.

How does disaster recovery as a service work?

Unitellas DRaaS works by replicating and hosting servers in a third-party vendor’s facilities versus in the physical location of the organization that owns the workload. The disaster recovery plan is executed on the third-party vendor’s facilities in the event of a disaster that shuts down a customer’s site. Organizations may purchase DRaaS plans through a traditional subscription model or a pay-per-use model that allows them to pay only when disaster strikes. As-a-service solutions vary in scope and cost—organizations should evaluate potential DRaaS providers according to their own unique needs and budget.

Unitellas DRaaS can save organizations money by eliminating the need for provisioning and maintaining an organization’s own off-site disaster recovery environment. However, organizations should evaluate and understand service level agreements. For instance, what happens to recovery times if both the provider and customer are affected by the same natural disaster, such as a large hurricane or earthquake. Different DRaaS providers have different policies on prioritizing which customers get help first in a large regional disaster or allowing customers to perform their own disaster recovery testing.

Unitellas DRaaS vs. backup as a service (BaaS)

With disaster recovery as a service, the service provider moves an organization’s computer processing to its cloud infrastructure in the event of a disaster. This way, the business can continue to operate, even if the original IT infrastructure is totally destroyed or held hostage. This differs from backup as a service, where only the data, but not the ability to process the data, is duplicated by a third-party provider. Because BaaS is only protecting the data, and not the infrastructure, it is typically less expensive than DRaaS. BaaS can be a good solution for companies that need to archive data or records for legal reasons, but most organizations who use BaaS will want to combine it with another disaster recovery tool to ensure business continuity.

Planning for disaster and getting the help you need is something every business needs to consider. Whatever option you choose, a disaster recovery plan is essential for business continuity, and organizations are increasingly turning to DRaaS.