Mitigate the risks you can't control.

Disaster Recovery (DR) solutions support businesses in recovering from any disaster that causes downtime. Total downtime depends on (1) the recovery point - the most recent backup - and (2) the recovery time - how long it takes to begin operating again. The further back the recovery point the more data lost. The longer the recovery time, the more wasted operational capacity and disrupted your customers' experience. This downtime adds up quick - and downtime is shockingly expensive. To minimize downtime, DR solutions duplicate your data so you lose as little data as possible, provide a validated plan for handling disasters, and include a failover (a back-up infrastructure) to get your business back up and running quickly with little to no disruption.

With DR as a service (DRaaS), providers layer on ongoing maintenance (including monitoring your data replication and updating your DR capabilities as your business evolves) and expert human support to help you through disasters.

• Reduce your business risk: Disasters happen and can cause irreparable damage - especially to the reputation and operations of a business. Minimize the risks of damaging your customers confidence and of losing irreplaceable data by being prepared.
• Avoid costly downtime: Every second is valuable. Most businesses are shocked at the cost of potential downtime. Without DR, the costs of downtime start before the disaster even begins (due to lost data and work product). When your IT is down, the costs keep rising until your business is fully operational again.
• Safely accelerate your business evolution: Stop limiting your agility by spending too much time worrying about "breaking something". Keep up with the competition by having a safeguard that gives you more freedom to pursue technological advancements.

At a minimum, you need a disaster recovery plan with some form of data backup. No business can be fully immune to disasters. Every industry is affected, and unfortunately, the risk and cost of disasters are constantly rising.

With DR as a service (DRaaS), have complete peace of mind that your DR preparations will work and that you will have expert support during any disaster you face.

They can certainly sound similar, but DR is not at all glorified Backup. Put simply, Backup is about avoiding complete data loss. DR is about ensuring business applications and processes are always available - and this isn't about just data. DR involves having your data, having access to a failover, and having a plan.

Looking at the data component alone, with Backup, data is typically backed up once every 24 hours overnight. With DR, data can be replicated as often as second for second. This means that relying on your backup alone, your business could loose an entire business day of data. You may think "easy, then I'll just back up more often". However, this will increase your costs and significantly slow your systems. This is because Backup relies on point in time complete duplication of data while DR relies on replication technology that tracks changes in data, minimizing data storage and therefore minimizing cost and CPU usage.

Beyond the data, DR involves having a failover and having a plan. A failover is owning or having access to a duplicate infrastructure in a geographically different location that you can use during a disaster. Having a failover is the foundation of being able to recover quickly if your infrastructure is compromised. Having a DR plan is how you recover. For most, a DR plan is more than a document of what to do; it is a tested and validated comprehensive plan that includes contingencies and pre-written scripts that automate the recovery process and remove human error from a stressful time. With DR as a service (DRaaS), providers layer on ongoing maintenance of your DR (including monitoring your data replication and keeping your plan up-to-date as your business evolves) and expert human support to help you through disasters.

To summarize, Backup is a copy of all of your data. DR is a replication of your data, duplication of your infrastructure, a ready to implement plan, and may include disaster recovery support.