How Disaster Recovery as a Service Simplifies Your Business While Reducing Risk
Businesses of all sizes are facing more data and cyber risk than ever before. Large enterprises can often afford to have extensive resources and teams on hand to mitigate risk, but most mid-size brands lack the resources for in-house, round the clock IT help to plan for disasters and business interruptions. Any IT staffers are focused on the everyday details and support your business needs, not the threats you don’t see coming.
Because of this, today’s in-house IT teams are often strapped for time and simply overwhelmed by the day to day tasks of running the business. This leads to an issue that you won’t discover until it is too late – a lack of disaster recovery planning. Many mid-sized businesses make this mistake, and for those who do encounter an emergency, the consequences can be devastating.
According to FEMA, it takes just 5 days of closure or interruption for a small business to falter after a disaster; an astounding 90% of brands fail in the year following a 5 day or more closure. Because of the terrible consequences that could be lurking just a flood, storm or cyber-attack away, savvy it leaders opt for Disaster Recover as a Service (DRaaS), which takes the protection process completely off-site.
When your organization opts for DRaaS, you take the burden of disaster recovery away from your in-house team entirely. This reduces their workload and ensures that these critical functions are carried out as they should be. Since your data is safely stored entirely off-site, and someone else is managing the updates and data protection, you can rest assured that your data is safe while you manage your business, no matter what happens to your physical structure or local network. As soon as you get to a secure location, you can re-access your data and resume critical operations without delay or loss.
5 Ways DRaaS Benefits your Business
While DRaaS has a primary function of preparing to restore your data and systems in the event of an emergency, it does offer other advantages. In addition to the peace of mind that comes from knowing your business is secure and not risking interruption, you can save both time and money with DRaaS.
- You Don’t Have to Test or Monitor the System
Disaster recovery systems kept on-site only work when they are fully ready, tested and monitored. When you opt for DRaaS, you move everything off site, including all testing. This ensures that your DR is always available to you and that it will work when you need it most. It also means that you don’t have to pay a staffer to work overtime, stay up late or figure out what to do if you have a problem. - Free up your In-house Team
When you opt for DRaaS, your in-house team can focus on the day to day tasks of running your network and keeping things working as they should, without the threat of a devastating outage looming over them. This ensures that your own team can fully focus on the things that your business needs to serve customers, communicate and grow. You’ll also save money, particularly if your existing team has been working late, overtime or you are facing hiring another employee just to cope with overflow and disaster recovery issues. Additionally, you’ll work with a team of trained professionals; since man-made threats are constantly evolving, up to date training is an essential. In many cases, you won’t have the time or money to keep an in-house team up to date. Remaining up to date on all facets of Disaster Recovery is a must – -and when you use DRaaS, you can be sure you have not only the latest, cutting edge technology, but fully trained professionals on hand as well. - Pay Only for What you Use
A comprehensive in-house approach to disaster recovery will require the ongoing provision of more space and equipment; you’ll have to invest in items and technology up front, even if you do not need that much protection right now. Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) is fully scalable and grows when you do. Because of this, you do not have to worry about buying an entire system or space that is much larger than you need; you also don’t have to worry about outgrowing your chosen protection technology. Pay as you go, for what you need; this allows you to get full coverage and reduced risk at the lowest possible cost. - Guaranteed Failover
Business interruption is no longer a risk with guaranteed failover. Your team won’t have to struggle to get your entire network back online – and you won’t have to worry about the type of interruption that can take days or even weeks to address. - Ransomware Mitigation
New forms of ransomware make headlines every week – and no business is safe. Hospitals, law firms, retailers and more have all been targeted and locked out of their own systems for days at a time – until they hand over some cash. DRaaS does not prevent ransomware attacks; instead, it allows for the automatic rebuilding of your network using proprietary software and methods. This captures a complete replica of your current data center in a secure location. When you have DRaaS, the threat of ransomware (that you will not be able to access your data) is eliminated. Even if your organization is breached, you won’t need to pay the ransom to recover your network – you’ll simply work with the saved, up to date replica and proceed as usual.
Can your Business Afford to Go Without DRaaS?
In today’s increasingly risky climate, a true disaster could prevent your business from opening for days – or even weeks. Since interruption has a profound impact on organizations of all sizes, DRaaS is an essential part of risk mitigation planning – and it only helps you if you have it in place when disaster strikes. If your business would be damaged by an interruption or an event that made your data inaccessible, you can’t afford to go another day with a sound and comprehensive DRaaS plan in place.
