To safeguard your customers’ mission-critical applications and guarantee their business continuity in the event of a catastrophe, as well as guarantee the security and integrity of their data at all times, you should explicitly relay to them the importance of implementing a truly dynamic disaster-recovery-as-a-service (DRaaS) solution.
Below are six of the critical features and characteristics of a best-in-class DRaaS solution that will prove its worth to your customers:
Continuous replication: Research shows that enterprises are shifting their operations to encompass a hybrid cloud environment; in fact, the hybrid cloud market is forecast to grow at a CAGR of nearly 30 percent between 2015 and 2019, according to Sandler Research. Because a best-in-class DRaaS solution is capable of supporting both virtual and physical data server environments—the technology provides a local appliance as well as a duplicated data environment hosted in the cloud—it can replicate servers at the application level to provide truly seamless failover. What’s more, servers are backed up continuously—specifically, every 15 minutes— meaning virtually no data is lost, assuring complete business continuity.
Fast recovery: Advanced DRaaS innovations like disk-imaging software, which takes a snapshot of the inside of any standard configuration—from an operating system to files to applications—ensures that organizations possess yet another form of backup beyond local appliances and the cloud. This method increases reliability and the capability to meet the recovery time objective (RTO) during a disaster. Users can restore their environments in a matter of seconds by utilizing this DRaaS model.
Cost efficiency: Simply put, when your customers’ core infrastructure is compromised, they lose revenue. What’s more, the costs associated with rebuilding an organization’s IT infrastructure alone should be a powerful enough impetus to drive your customers toward the best DRaaS solution on the market. Furthermore, let your customers know that implementing a do-it-yourself (DIY) disaster recovery model requires an outlay of resources for in-house staff, hardware and software that may, ultimately, prove ineffective. Instead, an all–encompassing DRaaS solution will mitigate the fees associated with the deployment of such disparate utilities while simultaneously protecting against future disaster-related costs.
Expert support: In addition to the technical benefits of DRaaS, your customers need accessible 24/7/365 support from trained experts. A truly dynamic DRaaS vendor provides white-glove support that is dedicated to monitoring your customers’ system around the clock. As well, top DRaaS vendors employ automated testing on a repeating basis to make sure that systems are completely backed up at all times. This will give your customers peace of mind that their data is safe.
Dynamic infrastructure: Best-of-breed DRaaS solutions combine backup and recovery into one solution to provide the highest level of failover. Many vendors provide either backup or recovery; however, combining both is the best way to guarantee full recovery and business continuity in any disaster. In addition, a DRaaS solution that can capture (using disk imaging), store and recover data in any environment, whether on-premises, cloud or virtual, ensures that each customer can implement a custom-tailored DRaaS model that suits its unique business needs.
Security and compliance: Compliance regulations such as HIPAA require that organizations have an offsite backup and disaster recovery strategy that is tested and validated. As such, many companies that employ DIY disaster recovery solutions risk the consequences associated with being incompliant, e.g. hefty fines. After all, DIY solutions are expensive, difficult to manage and even harder to test on a recurring basis. With a fully managed DRaaS solution, however, the provider handles all of the complexities such as rigorous testing. They also offer heightened security in hardened, certified data centers, with logical separation between customers’ environments. Finally, providers obtain third-party audits attesting to their compliance with regulations like HIPAA, so customers can rest assured that their systems are in good hands.
These six critical features are what partners should look for in a DRaaS solution for their customers. AVANT has partnered with Acronis to deliver its partners the best in DRaaS. Learn more about selling Acronis as an AVANT partner today, your customers will be glad you did!