Disaster Recovery
(DRaaS)
Storage Networks can work with any backup application, including Veeam, Unitrends, and Nakivo to create a cost effective offsite backup for Disaster Recovery failover.
We provide failover environments running Hyper-V, KVM, Xen (XenServer), VMware, i5/OS, and more.
Unlike traditional Disaster Recovery providers, you do not pay recurring fees for compute resources when you are not using them....Saving you thousands in OpEx and CapEx.
DRaaS Features
Offsite Backup Repository
The first step of a DR strategy is to get your data offsite. Our Veeam / Unitrends / Nakivo cloud repositories are backed by deduplication software to greatly reduce your offsite storage space requirements and costs. Our rates are comparable to AWS S3 / Azure Blob storage all while providing access to native VMWare / Hyper-V / Xen compute environments for emergency failover.
DR Cloud
Storage Networks offers a failover environment for VMWare, HyperV, Xen, KVM, and bare metal Linux / Windows / i5/OS workloads that can be restored from offsite backups or directly replicated into via Veeam / Nakivo / Unitrends Replicas (as opposed to backup copy jobs.)
Unlike most providers, you will only need to pay for compute resources when you need them for testing or failover.
Storage Networks also provides Microsoft SPLA licensing so your Windows, Exchange, SQL, and other Microsoft workloads remain compliant while operating in our datacenter.
Loaner Servers
Storage Networks can provide loaner servers to seed your data to our datacenter, or to restore data from our cloud to your local environment after a failover.
Are you in a the middle of a disaster without a cloud backup? Ask about our emergency server loaner servers that we can bring on site.
Hosted NAS - a unique approach
Traditional cloud providers charge a monthly "per TB" fee for offsite storage in a shared pool between customers. We can reduce costs, and enhance security, by hosting a private NAS, such as a Synology Rackstation, loaded with the latest 8-16TB drives. With the low one time cost to procure the NAS, we change the pricing model from "per TB" to a fixed monthly hosting fee. Storage Networks will provide the power, bandwidth, patching, and monitoring of the device along with an application proxy (Veeam proxy, Nakivo transporter, etc.) for optimal performance.
Strategy and Testing
Storage Networks can help create and document an actual disaster recovery strategy, failover plan, and failback plan. Let us ensure you have the proper offsite infrastructure including domain controllers and firewalls, and even more importantly, ensure your offsite data is not corrupt by executing periodic sandbox tests.
DRaaS FAQs
What is DRaaS?
DRaaS stands for "Disaster Recovery as a Service." Such a service provides a contingency plan for your business in the event a natural disaster, fire, or malware / ransomeware renders your primary server room, datacenter, or even cloud provider inoperable. The service should provide a way for you to run business critical applications on an alternate set of hardware or cloud platform.
What do I need to use DRaaS?
Most backup applications can serve as the starting point for DRaaS, including Veeam, Nakivo, Unitrends, & Arcserve. An internet connection with a solid upload speed is important, though the requirements will vary from customer to customer. We can help calculate the requirements, though for most SMBs, 100mbps is generally sufficient. You will also need a destination to send your backups, which could be a cloud provider such as Storage Networks or another datacenter owned by your organization.
What is a failback?
Failback is the process of moving your applications back from a disaster recovery (Secondary) site to the primary server room / datacenter / cloud provider. Failback is tricky because you often need to transfer all your data back from the remote location. Business owners are often not tolerant of a second round of downtime after the initial disaster. Storage Networks can help you develop an effective failback strategy.
How much does DRaaS Cost?
We offer DRaaS plans for as low as $100 per month. Pricing depends upon your storage requirements, RPO /RTO, and preferred backup software. Use the contact button below to request a quotation.
Does DRaaS need to be cloud hosted?
No! Many companies have multiple offices across the country. Storage Networks can provide consulting and or ongoing management / monitoring of backups going between your organizations buildings. You may need to procure some extra hardware, or perhaps repurpose older servers and storage to setup the second site which may, or may not, be more cost effective than using a cloud provider.
What should I be testing as part of a DR strategy?
An effective DR plan will include documentation of passwords, application / server startup orders, IP addresses, and much more. You will most likely need a Domain Controller (DC) at the secondary site. You need to be careful with software licensing, too, particularly with enterprise applications from Microsoft and Oracle which do not allow license mobility unless you have "Software Assurance." The biggest issue we see with developing a DR strategy is how your employees will access data while it lives in a second site. Will they access over a VPN? RDP Connection? Will IP addresses change? Storage Networks can help plan this for you.
What's the difference between DRaaS and Offsite Backup?
Offsite backup is a copy of your data transferred offsite. This could be on a tape, a USB disk, or a copy in the cloud such as AWS or Azure. The backup itself will need to be restored to a platform to be usable. A service that provides the compute resources (such as VMWare or Hyper-V servers) that these backups can restore do transforms the offsite backup into true "disaster recovery."
What is a failover?
A DR Failover is the act of restoring your offsite backups to the disaster recovery site and turning the servers "on" for either testing or actual production. Believe it or not, "failover" is the easy part compared to "failback."
What is RPO and RTO?
Recovery Time Objective (RTO) is the amount of time it takes to go from a "all systems down" situation back up to a state where all vital applications are running again.
Recovery Point Objective (RPO) refers to the amount of data you are willing to lose in a disaster. If you only backup your data once per day at 8:00 PM, and a disaster occurs as 7:00 PM the next day, you are essentially declaring that you are willing to lose 23 hours of data.