DISASTER RECOVERY AS A SERVICE
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requirements. “Traditional DR required time, technical skills and huge upfront costs, such as Capex purchase of infrastructure to be deployed and managed at a secondary data centre location, along with power/cooling costs and additional carbon emissions. This has led to a shift towards DRaaS in recent years. DRaaS pushes this complexity to an external partner who provides a fully managed service and expertise.” Reseller conversations The changes also bring opportunities for resellers that they should discuss with customers. “Advancements in technology offer new opportunities for our reseller partners to re-engage with their customers and get a deeper understanding of their current state and business goals,” says Andy. “For customers to be successful in their approach to IT modernisation, there needs to be a focus on what’s required for specific applications. However, deciding on the right technology can be a difficult and complex process.” Blake adds that at Intelliworx, they always discuss business plans for disaster scenarios with customers. “In these conversations it is crucial to identify important applications and services for the customer, assess potential system impacts due to unavailability and have discussions around classifying which services are considered most important and more impactful,” he says. “It is also important to develop a detailed plan for bringing the customer back online in the event of a disaster." But for successful DRaaS implementations, resellers need to thoroughly understand their customer’s needs first, Jamshaid notes. “This starts with identifying the financial impact on their business in the event of a disaster,” he says. “Within these early conversations, it's essential to identify other business-critical services that need to be integrated into the DR strategy to improve operations during downtime. This will ensure that operations can continue at the necessary level if the DR plan needs to be invoked. “Only after these crucial conversations take place can resellers delve into more detailed considerations. These include evaluating the ease of invoking the solution, determining whether the customer's current business continuity plan covers potential loss in cloud operations, and assessing whether the reseller's DRaaS Solution is designed to
span different geographical regions. These questions prompt customers to think critically about the specific design aspects they desire for their DRaaS, allowing resellers to tailor options to best meet business needs.” James adds that customers are typically doing one of two things. “If they have a traditional DR solution, they are usually looking to reduce cost and potentially decommission one of their data centres,” he says. “If they don't have a traditional DR solution, they are looking to add the capability and improve their recovery speeds. Understand what they are looking to achieve and tailor your discussions around that. “The shared driver across both cases is that everyone is also looking at how to mitigate cyber risk and recover from a cyber incident.” Matt adds that IT resellers should discuss ransomware protection within DRaaS. “They should emphasise its proactive security measures, data integrity checks, and quick recovery capabilities,” he says. “Conversations should focus on tailored plans and role of DRaaS in fortifying business continuity against ransomware attacks, ensuring customer data safety. “DR trends prioritise ransomware protection, with AI-driven defences customers seek proactive solutions offering rapid recovery, data integrity checks, and real- time monitoring against ransomware attacks. They demand scalable, cloud-centric DRaaS, emphasising robust security measures, compliance, and minimised downtime for uninterrupted operations.” Testing times Rob adds that resellers should emphasise the importance of testing DRaaS solutions to customers. “Test, test and if in doubt do another test,” he says. “All modern solutions should have built-in integrity checks and data continuity checks. However, you only really know if you can recover your data if you do it. All sorts of issues and unforeseen circumstances arise when you try to recover your systems. “We encourage resellers to do DR testing annually for customers, to guarantee that the DR solution continues to function and perform, and that data can be recovered according to company RTO and RPO objectives. “A top tip is to distinguish between a DR test and a DR invocation, as tests should never pose any risk to the production environment and will be conducted in total isolation from
Greg Jones VP, business development
kaseya.com
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If they don't have a traditional DR solution, they are looking to add the capability and improve their recovery speeds. Understand what they are looking to achieve and tailor your discussions around that.
”
Rob Mackie managing director (EMEA), co-founder
assured-dp.com
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