What You Need to Know About an IT Disaster Recovery Solution

For businesses, having an effective IT disaster recovery solution is a must. Furthermore, that IT disaster recovery solution needs to come at an affordable price. This is why most businesses choose a managed IT disaster recovery solution (DRaaS). Here is a quick guide to what you need to know about them.

What exactly is an IT disaster recovery solution?

An IT disaster recovery solution is a solution that will get a business’ IT systems quickly back into operation after unplanned incidents. Modern IT disaster recovery solutions tend to comprise servers running virtual machines.

These virtual machines exactly replicate the configurations of staff workstations. Regular staff can access them from any working computer with online access. They can then resume their work essentially as normal. Everything will look and feel the same to them.

When business operations are resumed, IT staff will troubleshoot the unplanned incident. Once it has been resolved, they will restore the normal IT system and turn off the virtual machines. Regular staff will then pick up when they left off.

What are the options for implementing an IT disaster recovery solution?

At the enterprise level, businesses may choose to run their own private data centers. This is, however, not a realistic option for most. The costs and logistics of this are prohibitive. Technically, businesses could keep their IT disaster recovery solution on site.

This would give them a certain level of protection. Not all unplanned incidents stop businesses from having access to their workplaces. With that said, however, some do. This means that on-site IT disaster recovery solutions are far from ideal.

That means, in practical terms, most businesses will be looking at either a managed IT disaster recovery solution (DRaaS) or disaster recovery colocation. Disaster recovery colocation is when a business hires space in a data center where it can run its own equipment.

For the majority, a managed IT disaster recovery solution is the only practical way to go. Here are the main reasons why.

It’s easy to set up

With disaster recovery colocation you not only have to figure out what you want to achieve but how you need to achieve it. You then need to find the resources to implement your solution. With a managed IT disaster recovery solution, you just tell the vendor what you want. The vendor then makes it happen.

It helps with cash flow

There are two ways that using a managed IT disaster recovery solution helps with cash flow. Firstly, it eliminates the need for disruptive capital expenditure. With disaster recovery colocation, you need to buy your own equipment. With a managed IT disaster recovery solution, you just use the vendor’s equipment. You don’t even have to pay a deposit on it.

Secondly, it gives you the reassurance that you will pay a guaranteed price for a guaranteed level of service. If there are any issues with the hardware, software, or infrastructure needed to run the disaster recovery solution, it’s the vendor’s responsibility to fix them. Likewise, it’s the vendor’s responsibility to ensure that any staff absences are covered.

It’s agile

Managed disaster recovery solutions can be scaled up and down in line with each client’s needs and wants. Furthermore, it can generally be scaled very quickly. In some cases, all it takes is a few mouse clicks. In other cases, a contract may need to be renegotiated.

Even in this second case, however, businesses can generally move a lot more quickly than they can when using disaster recovery colocation. With disaster recovery colocation, if you want to scale up, you need to buy what you need and then integrate it into your existing solution. How quickly this happens will generally depend on the availability of resources.

In fairness, disaster recovery colocation does have the edge when it comes to customizability. Realistically, however, this is unlikely to be a meaningful benefit to most SMBs. Most of them are likely to be perfectly happy with the customization options provided by IT disaster recovery solution vendors.

It ensures security

By this point, hopefully, all businesses are fully aware of the need to maintain the highest standards of IT security. In the real world, however, there is a difference between awareness and action. This is particularly relevant when resources are tight as is generally the case with SMBs.

With a managed IT disaster recovery solution, the vendor takes care of all external security. The client just has to manage their user’s access. With disaster recovery colocation, the business has to manage all aspects of security itself.

It’s convenient

Last but very definitely not least, using a managed IT disaster recovery solution is, quite simply, a convenient option for busy entrepreneurs.