Why Disaster Recovery as a Service is a Must-Have for your Business
WatServ
June 8, 2022
The past couple of years have been more challenging than most of us can remember, but it wasn’t only the Covid pandemic causing problems with business continuity. There is now an armed conflict in Europe that few business commentators were expecting a year ago. There has also been extreme weather events causing unexpected floods and fire.
The challenges are multiplying. If your business made it through the pandemic, then you would be forgiven for thinking that life is about to get easier. Unfortunately, for all these other reasons it may actually be getting harder. Business Continuity Planning (BCP) and Disaster Recovery (DR) needs a reboot for a new age of risk.
But as the need for strong DR is accelerating, the message may not always be clear.
Many company leaders assume they are not in danger. In fact, Only half of all companies have a documented and company-wide DR plan. Even those companies with a plan are not necessarily focusing on it – for many companies, a quick annual check is all they ever do.
The consequences of a disaster can be existential. Some research suggests that 93% of companies that suffered a major disaster – without having a DR plan in place – were out of business inside a year. The flip side of this statistic is that most companies with a documented plan can survive whatever is thrown at them – from ransomware to natural disasters.
But many executives find DR difficult to plan. It requires investment and dedicated teams for something that may never be required. Isn’t there a better way to manage this risk?
There is – Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS). DRaaS allows you to avoid all the usual implementation issues. It offers a flexible and scalable solution that can manage the possibility of a disaster.
What are the key benefits of DRaaS?
- Implementation is fast. You can be up and running quickly.
- It’s far cheaper than traditional DR.
- Recovery is faster – it can start the moment a problem is identified.
- You don’t need to manage offsite hardware.
- Your data center is guaranteed to be secure.
- With DRaaS you always have an expert partner helping to manage your DR strategy.
This is a very different approach. Instead of contracting with a disaster recovery data center, or even creating a complete copy of your main production facilities, you can rely on cloud-based disaster recovery processes to guarantee your data and processes are all backed up all the time.
You pay for protection as you use it, rather than needing to invest in a complete replication of your production servers and other equipment, so there is no enormous Capex bill up front. DRaaS allows you to protect your business as an operating expense – it’s almost like an insurance policy, except this DR service will always be there when you need help.
DRaaS is a constant and ongoing approach to safety and security without the typical expense of a traditional DR plan.
With WatServ’s Disaster Recovery as a Service, we will work with you to eliminate your need to manage complex, on-premise recovery infrastructure, freeing up your internal IT resources so they can focus on achieving business goals. Our DRaaS team leverages the Azure cloud to create a fully comprehensive disaster recovery environment, so in the event of a disaster, your business will remain safe.
For more information on how to design a DR process, please check out our complete guide to IT disaster recovery planning.
About
WatServ is an IT solutions provider that helps organizations digitally transform through cloud technologies and managed services.
Serving clients as a trusted advisor since 2006, WatServ provides experience-tested, strategic solutions across all stages of the digital transformation journey. Clients choose WatServ to migrate infrastructure and applications to the cloud, secure critical data, implement disaster recovery, deploy virtual desktop, enable data-readiness for productivity solutions and manage IT environments.
Our clients span a broad range of industries, and we’re a global supplier of IT services for many Brookfield Portfolio Companies. To help our mid-size clients, we provide scalable offerings that simplify cloud adoption and drive business optimization. For enterprise clients, we co-create cloud solutions that enable stability and efficiency for complex IT tools and processes.
With more than 15 years of experience, WatServ has a track record of delivering quantifiable business results and a superior client experience. Ranked as one of Canada’s Top 100 Solution Providers for the last three years in a row, WatServ is always on.
