3 types of DRaaS: Which approach is best?

Doing it yourself is always the least expensive option — until it’s not. “While this model offers unparalleled flexibility, you are entirely on your own with responsibility for your DR solution,” explained Ian McClarty, president and CEO of PhoenixNAP, a global IT services provider. This includes planning, testing, ongoing management and, of course, managing any failover events. “This model requires IT staff [to be] at the ready to manage recovery when needed,” he noted.

Self-service DRaaS works best for enterprises with extensive in-house expertise and proper program management capabilities already in place to plan, deploy and execute a DRaaS strategy, advised Manoj Nair, CEO of HyperGrid, a cloud management platform provider. The approach requires the customer to have a thorough understanding of its own IT landscape, applications and services.

“It also requires knowledge of the relationships with assets, such as storage, compute and networking, as well as the interdependencies between them,” he said. With proper automation at the IaaS level and prioritization of the base application services necessary to sustain the business, self-service DRaaS can help enterprises reduce costs while solidifying recovery time objectives and recovery point goals.

All DR is good DR, since one never knows exactly when a disaster will strike, N4Stack’s Moore observed. “However, when it comes to choosing your DR services, it’s important to weigh your business needs and capabilities, as there is no one-size-fits-all solution.”