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IT acronyms that can be pronounced as words and used in complete sentences are the most fun kind. SaaS or SAS (“Beyonce shows a lot of SaaS”) and PaaS (“That Tom Brady throws quite a PaaS”) are two examples.
Ready or not, the IT industry has added DRaaS (“Don’t do anything DRaaS-tic”) to the mix. This stands for disaster recovery as a service, and it’s becoming a big seller very quickly because DR is a pain to set up, test and maintain on premises. DR in the cloud is good a way for a business to be well covered and not have to think about it.
DRaaS refers to services that offer business continuity by enabling data backup, recovery and retrieval. It is the process of replicating virtual servers to protect and back up data in the case of man-made or natural disasters.
Some of the key players in this nascent sector include Veeam, CenturyLink’s DataGardens, TwinStrata, Unitrends, Asigra, Infrascale, Cirrity, Intronis, Zerto, Iland and VelocityCloud. All the usual household-name suspects (IBM, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, VMware, Oracle, Dell) also have their own versions of this service.
The upside to this sub-sector of IT is a healthy one; the estimated size of the global market is expected to balloon to $6 billion to $12 billion by 2020. MarketsandMarkets is projecting a $12 billion DRaaS market by 2020, and that’s a far cry from the $1.4 billion worth of DRaaS sold in 2015.
Global Industry Analysts is much more conservative at $6.4 billion global sales by 2020. Gartner Research estimates that the size of the DRaaS market will eventually far exceed that of traditional on-prem DR services.
The single major inhibitor of DRaaS sales is the widespread lack of DR planning among small and midsize businesses (SMBs) and midrange companies. This is because DR most often takes a back seat to daily production issues and only gets full attention when management insists on it.
Following is an alphabetical listing of global DRaaS leaders, based on market sales, industry research and eWEEK resources. We also include some detail on what distinguishing features each vendor brings to the job.
Acronis
Acronis Disaster Recovery Service is a comprehensive DRaaS service that provides protection and restoration of data, servers and full data centers. Its model is an adjustable, pay-as-you-go service that migrates, protects and recovers data in physical, virtual and cloud environments. This recovery service provider’s goal is to simplify and reduce the costs of protecting your data.
Strengths:
–Extensive knowledge of hybrid recovery configurations.
–A recovery console gives clients authority over management, reporting and analytics.
–Full automation offers runbook austerity.
–Uses automated and segregated recovery testing for client convenience.
Acronis migrates, protects and recovers data in physical, virtual and cloud environments. Its goal is to simplify and reduce the costs of protecting your data. Acronis is designed for midsize organizations and enterprises and offers self-service Web-based disaster management for a hands-on experience with your data recovery. Its push-button recovery uses automated runbook procedures to recover entire data centers at once and automated testing allows for regular assessment.
Bluelock
Bluelock provides DRaaS for complex environments and sensitive data to help companies mitigate risk with confidence. Bluelock supports unique requirements, such as multi-tiered recovery, mixed configuration environments with physical and virtual machines, and complex security requirements. The company is known for its Recovery Assurance program, which incorporates deliberate processes and services designed to ensure that clients are completely confident its disaster recovery plan will work when needed.
Strengths:
–Has strong professional services and robust on-boarding, training and runbook development processes, which are demonstrated through its Recovery Assurance Program.
–Offers DRaaS solutions designed for sensitive data and compliance (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act/ Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HIPAA/HITECH)).
–Its client portal, Bluelock Portfolio, allows clients to track and manage service costs, resources and RPO realization.
–Has experience with hybrid recovery configuration (virtual and physical machines) support and experience managing large enterprise recovery configurations.
Bluelock ranks highly in client satisfaction within the DRaaS industry with a Net Promoter Score of 81 (a score of 50 is considered world-class). It is also recognized by Gartner as a “visionary” in the Magic Quadrant for DRaaS.
Databarracks
Databarracks focuses on data recovery and protection at a low cost. It does this by using an infrastructure platform that allows access to hardware only when needed. Its service allows for remote access to data from any location, giving clients flexibility to back up and recover from wherever they like.
Strengths:
–Offers an adjustable management process for resource bursting.
–No-cost testing is ideal for clients who want to analyze its recovery process multiple times throughout a year.
–Enables rapid failover times for virtual and physical servers.
–Each client is designated a specified commercial account manager and technical account manager, as well as given access to the Service Delivery Management team for support.
Databarracks replicates and restores multiple tiers, including hypervisors, physical and virtual servers and applications. It also uses integrated backup and recovery for virtualization. Databarracks’ technology partners include Veeam, VMware and Zerto.
IBM Cloud Services
IBM Cloud Virtualized Server Recovery (CVSR) maintains continuous business operations and improved resilience against data disruption. The fully managed cloud disaster recovery service aids virtual and physical locations on a virtualized cloud infrastructure at a designated secure data recovery center.
Strengths:
–Has varying levels of test frequency, declaration costs, recovery targets and service pricing, making it easier for clients to create the ideal service for its needs.
–Client-initiated premises-to-cloud failovers give clients more control over activities.
–Recovery management simplicity is ideal for enterprise customers.
–A comprehensive provider portal interface lends itself to accessible administration.
IBM offers an array of data protection options and a multi-tiered portal for shortened recovery times. The ready-to-go structure helps customers decrease time and investment in building, operating and managing the resiliency solution. IBM’s data recovery service ensures nonstop replication of data to avoid hazardous gaps. Clients can also employ continuous data observation for a monthly subscription price.
NTT Communications
NTT Communications’ cloud disaster recovery service offers both recovery and backup of data. Clients are in constant control of the service, with self-management options, audit logs and asset-based usage reporting.
Strengths:
–Allows clients to take charge of its service through self-driven definition, configuration, setup and monitoring.
–Virtual and physical servers can be hosted in multiple locations globally, which aids in support of hybrid configurations.
–Failover and recovery testing are offered at no cost, which makes it simple for clients to test its recovery systems whenever they want.
–NTT Communications’ systems are continuously checked for data integrity and availability.
NTT Communications’ ensures enterprise-class firewalls and multi-level security of its cloud replica server. It offers Hybrid Cloud, Enterprise Cloud and Cloud options for instant protection and recovery. NTT Communications’ automated cloud storage process provides high flexibility for clients, as well, as it runs on a predefined service-level agreement and requires little monitoring.
A Close Look at Leaders in Rapidly Growing DRaaS Market
Seagate
Seagate EVault Cloud Resiliency Service offers both self-managed and provider-managed data protection and recovery services. Its DRaaS model provides real-time replication of system data, in addition to access during planned downtime. The company guarantees the availability of critical data within one hour of an outage, ensuring that you will be able to access systems even in the event of a disaster.
Strengths:
–Offers tiered storage to guarantee that most critical data can be retrieved as soon as possible during an outage.
–Additional storage can reach up to 15 percent more at no extra charge.
–Daily data integrity checking ensures system stability.
–Offers extensive language support.
Seagate uses a one-hour service-level agreement option that is compatible with any backup solution, mitigating the need for a secondary site. The services also support a number of Windows and virtual platforms, to protect data and applications, including Microsoft Windows Server 2003, 2008 and 2012; NetApp; Microsoft Exchange; SQL Server, File Server and SharePoint; Blackberry Server; IBM i and IBM AIX; Red Hat and SUSE Linux; and VMware.
Sungard Availability Services
Sungard AS has a multi-solution DRaaS service that includes Recover2Cloud, Managed Recovery Program and Enterprise Storage Replication. Its model is a managed service that includes customer-managed features for a more customizable experience. It offers both cloud and hosting services to tailor its disaster recovery service to customer needs.
Strengths:
–Offers integrated applications and data recovery management.
–Crash-consistent and application-consistent recovery for both virtual and physical environments ensure your data will be secure no matter what.
–An abundance of data backup and application recovery professional services are offered.
–Sungard AS sustains SSAE 16 (Statement on Standards for Attestation Engagements) service organization control (SOC) 2, Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), HIPAA and International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 9001 compliance.
Sungard AS works to strengthen an IT environment to guard against unwanted hybrid situations. Its provider-managed recovery testing aids in effective assessments, leading to customizable improvements. Sungard AS’s holistic method to disaster recovery is adjustable for each client’s recovery time objectives (RTOs) and recovery point objectives (RPOs), giving extensive flexibility and comprehensiveness.
Verizon
Verizon works with VMware, Microsoft, HP and Cisco to offer disaster recovery that is adaptable to clients’ specific needs. The service is fully managed and allows failover to a completely functional environment in case of disaster. Verizon’s data replication service ensures that the entire server is fully recoverable and will restore an operating system, data and applications onto a utility computing platform.
Strengths:
–Offers additional CPU and RAM for no additional charge.
–Extensive experience with business continuity and IT disaster recovery projects makes Verizon knowledgeable and helpful for clients.
–Virtual machine (VM) and related production data replication lets clients protect its emulated data and systems.
–Timely service fixes and responsive support services let clients solve problems immediately.
Verizon offers off-site failover and active/active configurations for applications that have native replication capabilities. In addition, clients have the option to use array-based replication for full protection of large numbers of virtual or physical servers.
VMware
VMware’s DRaaS model is ideal for both private and public cloud hosting. VMware Virtual SAN, VMware vSphere Replication and VMware Site Recovery all support private clouds built by individual organizations, giving them a secure, independent and non-disruptive hosting and testing of important data. VMware vCloud Air Disaster Recovery is ideal for native cloud-based recovery and uses VMware vSphere Replication to generate asynchronous data replication, the company said.
Strengths:
–Offers 24/7/365 access to assistance during Severity 1 situations.
–Services have a 99.9 percent guaranteed uptime, giving clients nearly constant access to its data and applications.
–Services are priced in a transparent and comprehensible manner, making it easy for clients to understand what they’re buying.
–Regulatory compliance, such as IOS 27001, SOC 1 (SSAE 16)/SOC 2 Type 2, SOC 3 and HIPAA/HITECH are all supported through VMware vCloud Air.
VMware offers virtualization technologies that ensure that an entire system data is secure. The backup service allows for timely and efficient protection of your data, systems and applications. VMware’s service also erases planned downtime during system maintenance. In case of disaster, VMware safeguards all mission-critical applications to avoid downtime and keep clients’ businesses running without a hitch.
Windstream
Windstream’s model focuses on fast, cost-effective data protection and recovery. All critical applications, servers and data are hosted in its cloud environment and can be up and running in mere minutes in case of a disaster. To guarantee clients’ access to its data at all times, Windstream offers continuous replication, as well as self-managed options for testing and recovery.
Strengths:
–Its 2N standard data centers guarantee that main production infrastructures aren’t affected by single failure points.
–Ensures that clients’ data center infrastructure components and internal data center networks will be accessible 100 percent of the time.
–Offers incrementally priced VM replication to other clouds.
–Allows for up to 60 days of recovery operations within its data center.
Windstream offers both cloud-to-cloud recovery and server-to-cloud recovery, backing virtual and physical servers. Application-consistent recovery points are used to keep clients’ key applications running at their best. Windstream also offers specialized options for EMC-powered and NetApp-powered data centers.