With Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) becoming more commonplace, companies of all sizes have been looking to DRaaS service offerings to support their business continuity plans when disaster strikes. But DRaaS isn’t one size fits all! Having a data protection platform that supports business needs when evaluating RTO, RPO, SLAs and budget — as well as the manageability from a provider’s perspective, is key in a DRaaS offering.
The Role of Backups, Replication and CDP in a DRaaS Strategy
Should all data be treated the same, with the same level of importance? Probably not. But this should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis with your clients. Usually, part of a Business Impact Analysis (BIA), understanding this on a foundational level informs SLAs and the acceptable amount of downtime and data loss by department. Budget also quickly enters the equation as a very important factor to consider.
When crafting a DR strategy, the tiering of data by priority SLAs and budget should inform how a provider should protect and recover the client’s data. This is where the role of backups, replication and Continuous Data Protection (CDP) enter the conversation.
Workload Tiering
When an application is deemed mission critical it is often classified as Tier 0 workload. This type of data cannot afford any delays or disruption of service. Often, this is a very small percentage of the overall picture. CDP would be the best way to protect Tier 0 workloads. When considering RTOs for these applications, the recovery time is up to an hour and as low as five seconds. In most cases, not all client data requires CDP!
Tier 1 workloads are required for day-to-day operations. This data, while important, may have more of a downtime tolerance than Tier 0 workloads, and be perfectly suited for a replication approach. When looking at RTO and RPOs, replication usually provides less than one-hour RTOs and RPOs of less than 12 hours.
And finally, Tier 2 workloads which would constitute all other data and applications. These workloads would require backups (like all data) and be perfectly acceptable to recover from the backups within the defined SLA period. RTO is usually between two and eight hours and RPO is typically up to 24 hours.
Remember, each customer and industry can vary. The budget and tolerance for downtime and data loss plays a key factor in these decisions. The three data protection mechanisms (backups, replication and CDP) are complementary and are often used together.
While there are many aspects to a DR plan, this article only covers one component. With most organizations seeking a DRaaS provider for expertise in BCDR planning and execution, choosing a platform that can accommodate workload tiering can be a game changer in your DRaaS offering. This can bring an affordable DR solution to your potential and current clients whether it’s recovering from backups, snapshot-based replication and/or CDP, while standardizing to a single solution.
Interested in offering Veeam-powered DRaaS leveraging the Veeam Data Platform? With the Veeam Cloud & Service Provider (VCSP) program, you can build and host your own DR solution, or purchase one from a Reseller Ready DRaaS partner that can be white labeled to your customer base. To learn more about building a Veeam-powered DRaaS offering, access the DRaaS Partner Success Kit on ProPartner Portal here. To find a ready to sell Veeam-powered DRaaS solution, visit the Reseller Ready Partner Directory here. Not a VCSP partner yet? Learn about the VCSP program benefits and how to get started here.
