In modern day business continuity planning (BCP), data recovery after a disaster is of the utmost importance. Cloud disaster recovery, or cloud DR, is one method of disaster recovery - and it has a lot of advantages.

Today, we’re going to talk about what cloud DR is, contrasting it to traditional DR. We’ll then look at the advantages and disadvantages of cloud DR, and discuss where and when hybrid solutions might be appropriate.

How does cloud DR work?

As we mentioned in the intro, cloud DR is a backup and disaster recovery service. You can think of it as part SaaS, part IaaS, as you’re effectively purchasing server space at a remote data center. Some people even refer to cloud DR as DRaaS.

Cloud DR is incredibly efficient. The premise is simple - backups are saved to a remote data center instead of to a location controlled by the business that’s purchasing the cloud DR service. In almost all cases, cloud DR providers offer point-in-time recovery, depending on the recovery point objective (RPO) of the business. 

Depending on the speed of the internet connection of the business, and the recovery time objective (RTO) agreed upon between the cloud DR provider and the purchaser, failover can be incredibly quick.

How cloud DR compares to traditional DR

Cloud DR and traditional DR are actually incredibly similar. Both involve point-in-time data recovery in most cases - few businesses need (or can afford) near real-time replication. Both are used in BCP, and require realistic RPOs and RTOs to be cost-effective.

The main difference is simply whether or not your disaster recovery is onsite or offsite. Traditional DR is onsite, which means you don’t need an internet connection for failover, and that slow connection speeds won’t lead to the company missing its RTO.

The advantages and disadvantages of cloud DR

Cost

Typically, the cost of cloud DR is lower than the cost of traditional DR. In many cases, the cost is substantially lower. We can thank economies of scale for this - it’s much more cost effective to run multiple VMs on powerful computers all contained within one space than it is to build your own backup server.

One of the disadvantages of cloud DR, however, is that you’re at the whim of a third-party - and that can mean some unpredictable fees. Invocation fees, testing fees, and data egress fees can all make the price of cloud DR shoot up - especially when you actually need disaster recovery.

All this is to say - cloud DR is less expensive for most SMBs, but you should read your contract carefully.

Scalability

Scalability is a major advantage of cloud DR. When your network grows, it’s not a simple matter to go out and buy more in-house server space for your backups. You might not have room on the premises, let alone the hardware. 

This isn’t a problem with cloud DR. When you need more space, you’ll simply contact your service provider, they’ll increase your monthly fee, and suddenly, you have all the space you need. 

The opposite is also true - when you need to scale down, it’s not always practical to sell the machines you were using to backup your network in traditional DR. When you’re using cloud DR, on the other hand, you’ll simply contact your service provider.

Accessibility

Accessibility is a bit of a double-edged sword when it comes to cloud DR. With cloud DR, you can more readily provide backups to a remote workforce - if, for example, there’s a fire at your location that destroys your network and your traditional DR, cloud DR would still allow your remote force to access the network.

On the other hand, if your internet connection goes down on location, disaster recovery is impossible with cloud DR - while with traditional DR, you can failover without issue.

Control

One of the main disadvantages of cloud DR is that you have far less control over the hardware and its usage. If you have extremely sensitive data, cloud DR may not be the best solution for your business. 

The hybrid solution

As with most cloud services, the best solution is sometimes a hybrid approach. For those businesses with sensitive data that they don’t want to hand over to a third party, a hybrid solution may be best.

Backup your most sensitive data on location (and off-location - 3 backups of everything sensitive is usually the best idea). Then, find a trusted cloud DR provider to back up everything else.

We hope this article has given you a better understanding of cloud DR, and how it can be used in your business. It’s one of the more innovative combinations of IaaS and SaaS we’ve seen - in that way, it’s kind of like the DaaS we offer!