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The question is not whether to choose disaster recovery as a service. It’s how to choose between disaster recovery solution providers. With that in mind, here are the key points you should consider when looking at disaster recovery solution providers.
Why are you considering disaster recovery solution providers?
In other words, what do you need and want a disaster recovery solution provider to do for you? What are your must-haves, wants, and priorities? Setting this out clearly before you start looking at disaster recovery solution providers will help you to assess vendors both quickly and fairly. You’ll immediately be able to move on to a new candidate if a vendor doesn’t offer something you really need. You’ll also be able to create an objective picture of how disaster recovery solution providers compare with each other.
Here are the 7 primary areas you should address when creating your request.
1. Who will manage your backup process?
Backups are used for many purposes, not just disaster recovery. They could be managed by a business’ IT team or by a disaster recovery solution provider or a collaboration of the two. For example, the IT team might oversee the backup process and control an on-site backup and send a copy of the backup to the disaster recovery solution provider to be kept off-site.
This approach means that there is a backup conveniently available for everyday restorations plus an off-site backup for disaster recovery.
2. What infrastructure do you need?
Many businesses have their IT staff connect to virtual machines to allow off-site troubleshooting and service restoration.
If this is among your requirements today or in the future, it is important to establish the specifications for the virtual machines you require.
3. In which locations do you want your provider’s data centers?
Failover sites should be selected based on both data protection, and access and recovery. For example, a failover site in Minneapolis can be an excellent option for a primary data center located in Chicago. Your data should be far enough to be safe and close enough for rapid recovery.
4. What RPO and RTO do you need?
You can expect most disaster recovery solution providers to support your Recovery Point Objective and/or Recovery Time Objective. However, price can vary. Being specific in your RTO and RTO expectations will allow you to make an informed decision.
5. What service guarantees can a provider offer?
The average uptimes often mentioned on disaster recovery solution providers’ websites may be useful information. It is important to be clear about the exact services provided in addition to the uptime guaranteed.
6. What are your options for testing your disaster recovery plan?
You need to test your disaster recovery plan regularly so you can be sure that it works as intended. Disaster recovery solution providers should provide tools to support this.
7. How much flexibility can a provider offer?
For many businesses one of the main reasons for choosing to work with a disaster recovery solution provider is that it offers a lot more flexibility than building an in-house disaster recovery solution. The reason why is because a fully managed DRaaS solutions comes with a team that continually tests your environment and ensures that it stays up to date with your business. It’s therefore advisable to find out how much flexibility a potential vendor can offer.
