Top 5 Benefits of using RaaS as your Disaster Recovery service

Of the many problems the companies face each passing day, disruption in the services is perhaps one common problem which is dreaded by all, and understandably so. In times like today, a brief period of disruption in services means loss of money, credibility and customers to the always happy to oblige competitors. As discussed in our previous post, a lot of companies in the market today offer cloud based services called RaaS i.e. Recovery as a Service, also sometimes referred to as DRaaS, Disaster Recovery as a Service.

Before RaaS was being offered in cloud, companies used the traditional Disaster Recovery services. Traditional Disaster Recovery services involved a lot of hard work, maintenance and expenses. It meant setting up a replica infrastructure of the company and probably upgrading it year by year, once again depending on the growth of the company. Although the traditional disaster recovery service would still serve the purpose now except that the stakes are now pretty high.

The main difference between the traditional disaster recovery and RaaS in cloud is that while the traditional disaster recovery intends to recover and resume all services within the time period as per the SLA, the RaaS in cloud works in a way as if it were nothing but a minor glitch. Naturally, the reason behind this is the advancements and awareness in the field of Cloud.

Photo Credit – Vmenkov/Wikimedia Commons

RaaS attempts to overcome the shortcomings of the traditional disaster recovery model. RaaS makes disaster recovery process for the companies more effective, reliable and more importantly, burning a smaller hole in the pockets. Here are some of the benefits of using RaaS in the cloud.

1. RaaS Cost – Effective

Companies spend a huge amount on owning the infrastructure, renting/buying the location to set up the infrastructure since it has to be in a different location than the company, maintaining the infrastructure. It would be quite bummer if the disaster recovery fails when required. The company would also have to upgrade the infrastructure as we stated earlier. However, moving the disaster recovery services to cloud RaaS would save the money on location, infrastructure and maintenance. They can simply pay as per usage in a monthly or yearly basis.

2. RaaS provides Scalability

No company can predict its future growth and plan the infrastructure. The company has to bear the cost of upgrading the infrastructure at regular intervals and also invest money in its maintenance for it to work effectively when required. The cloud based RaaS services are able to scale up the configurations on demand to avoid any kind of disruption.

3. Fast Recovery

In the event of disaster, a company’s business continuity plan comes into action which involves interrupted services to the customers and simultaneously recovering the lost resources as quickly as possible, thus reducing the recovery time.

4. RaaS enables Automation

Due to automation, there is no room for human error and there is also no time lost. The automation process helps maintain speed as well as accuracy.

5. Easier to Test

The cost of testing the recovery process in the traditional disaster recovery is higher and more complicated than testing with RaaS process in the cloud.

Conclusion

RaaS also serves to small and mid size organizations who may not be able to use traditional infrastructure due to money constraints. It is necessary that you select the service provider and the plan that delivers on these benefits.

Feature Photo Credit –  Barbara Samuel/Flickr

Recommended Read: What is is RaaS in Cloud Computing