By Justus Scout
Disaster recovery as a Service (SaaS) can be used for several purposes. Large corporations use DRaaS to protect their applications and data in case of server failures. Individuals and small businesses use DRaaS to protect their applications and data in case of server failures, system corruption, viruses and other malicious attacks. Disaster recovery as a Service is also used in business to reduce IT costs.
There are several aspects that need to be considered before choosing Disaster recovery as a service providers. These aspects include the cost of support, the speed of response and recovery, easy configuration and scalability, security of the servers and databases, control panel and reporting. The ease of configuration and scalability will depend on the size of the business and the type of servers. An example of a large scale company may require extensive planning and documentation before moving to this method. Small scale companies may not have this much work to do.
A common use of DRaaS is to provide disaster recovery by replacing physical servers with virtual ones. Virtual servers are just that – they’re virtual. They can be customized and setup to perform the functions of a physical server, but they are not required to have all the features of a physical server. Virtual servers are often used to create a replicated infrastructure. This infrastructure consists of servers, appliances, storage devices and network interfaces. This allows for an individual to test a system, customize it for storage needs, and test the operation of their infrastructure without taking their production servers into care.
Another option for disaster recovery as a service is to replace the primary site for servers, enterprise-level applications, or databases with a second site. A secondary site is basically just another site on the Internet that hosts servers. These sites act in much the same way as the primary site, but they don’t require the expensive costs and space that the primary site would require. Instead, the second site becomes the second “site” for your application servers, database servers, or any other servers that are required for your business to function properly. When a disaster recovery plan is put together, the company can simply restore these systems over the Internet.
As an example, if you own a company that deals with medical equipment, you could have one main server that host all of your data and applications, and a few backup servers for things like patient files and medical records. If a doctor visits your site, the doctor’s appointment details are stored on one of the backup servers, and all of the pertinent health information is sent to the appropriate location via email. The doctor can then view his records from the comfort of his own computer, and you can easily ensure that he’s not missed at his scheduled appointment.
