Disaster Recovery as a Service: A Gateway for SMB Cloud Adoption

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1 September 2013 Disaster Recovery as a Service: A Gateway for SMB Cloud Adoption Frost & Sullivan Analysis by Karyn Price Cloud Computing (CC) Volume 3, Number 6

2 Disaster Recovery as a Service: A Gateway for SMB Cloud Adoption Table of Contents Executive Summary... 4 Introduction... 5 Solving the Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Challenge for SMBs... 6 Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery... 6 Bridging the Gap: Disaster Recovery in the Cloud... 6 Key Components of DRaaS Services... 8 Disaster Recovery as a Cloud Adoption Driver... 9 DRaaS Landscape: A Provider Synopsis Bluelock Dell Earthlink Virtustream Windstream The Last Word List of Figures Figure 1: Businesses Planning to Implement a Cloud for Backup and Recovery Figure 2: DRaaS Providers Lowest RTO and RPO CC 3-6, September 2013 Frost & Sullivan, 2013 Page 3

3 Disaster Recovery as a Service: A Gateway for SMB Cloud Adoption Executive Summary Several high-profile disasters over the last decade have made businesses more aware of the importance of business continuity and disaster recovery planning for their data and applications. But the available solutions have been cumbersome and costly. Restoring backed up data from a physical medium takes too much time following an emergency. Duplicate infrastructure and storage space can be cost prohibitive. Cloud computing has offered a solid solution to this disaster recovery problem. With cloud-based disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS), providers offer a single solution that backs up not only data, but an organization s complete environment, including applications; and provides a new, cloudbased environment for the applications and data to fail-over to. Most DRaaS providers solutions operate under a warm site approach to disaster recovery, allowing it to be made operational with the latest available data, quickly and cost effectively. For cloud service providers looking to more fully utilize their investment in cloud infrastructure, DRaaS offers a way to reach new customers and gain new revenue streams. A DRaaS solution can provide recurring Providers have discovered that DRaaS revenue for backup and storage activities, as well as pay-peruse infrastructure usage when the solution is activated in the for SMBs: once they experience a is a powerful entry point to the cloud case of a disaster. Furthermore, many providers have successful fail-over, they are more discovered that DRaaS is a powerful entry point to the likely simply to leave their applications cloud for SMBs: once they experience a successful fail-over, in the provider s cloud. they are more likely simply to leave their applications in the provider s cloud. Beyond outlining the key components of a sound DRaaS solution, this report profiles five players in the DRaaS market, and compares the key components of each solution. We look at the value proposition of DRaaS for businesses, particularly the SMB market, and offer recommendations for cloud services providers looking to expand their cloud portfolios. CC 3-6, September 2013 Frost & Sullivan, 2013 Page 4

4 Introduction 1 Disaster recovery is to business especially the SMB space as exercise is to working parents: there rarely seems time, energy, or budget to fit it into the fabric of daily life. But recent years have seen increases in business-impacting disasters of all types. Anything from wild weather to hackers and terrorism can threaten the data center and the critical technology that it houses at a moment s notice, causing disruptions or complete outages of the systems that businesses rely on. As such, businesses must prepare for a far wider variety of emergency situations in order to effectively maintain or recover operations in the wake of such events. Cloud-based backup solutions such as self-service backup to an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) or Storage as a Service can be a cost-effective alternative to traditional backup methods. Data is housed in a provider s cloud. Because clouds are multitenanted, pay-for-consumption services, the cost to Cloud-based backup solutions such as self-service backup to an Infrastructure store backup data is typically less than to purchase as a Service (IaaS) or Storage as a Service dedicated space that the business owns or leases. But can be a cost-effective alternative to these self-service or storage-only backup options still traditional backup methods. But neither pose challenges. Neither do-it-yourself options nor do-it-yourself options nor storage as a storage as a service are specifically designed to trigger service are specifically designed to trigger backups; thus, IT technicians must intervene to backups; thus, IT technicians must intervene provision and maintain the resources. Also, such to provision and maintain the resources. services capture only data, but not the associated applications; and they typically do not include a preconfigured fail-over environment. As such, the time involved to recover data and resume business operations can be onerous, particularly when the disaster prevents re-opening of physical facilities. The latest cloud-based option in disaster recovery is the as-a-service model. With Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS), the provider offers a complete solution: backing up not only data, but the applications that run them, as well as providing an environment in the cloud for the business to failover to when disaster strikes. While DRaaS in no way comprises a complete business continuity/disaster recovery (BCDR) solution, it can address many of the IT aspects of the plan. When coupled with measures to care for access issues, DRaaS provides a valuable and cost-effective option for businesses to consider. In this study, Frost & Sullivan compares the disaster recovery options available to business, and the advances that the cloud has offered for businesses of all sizes but particularly the SMB segment 1 In preparing this report, Frost & Sullivan conducted interviews with representatives of the following companies: Bluelock Pat O Day, Chief Technology Officer; Ben Miller, Cloud Solutions Expert Dell Srinidhi Varadarajan, VP, General Manager of Data Protection; Craig Lowery, Chief Cloud Architect Earthlink Bert McDowell, Analyst Relations; Vishal Sharma, VP, IT Services; Ron Penna, Sr. Prod. Mgr., Cloud Virtustream Sean Jennings, VP, Solutions Architecture Windstream Jacalyn Mispagel, DRaaS Product Manager; Rob Carter, Dir. of Prod. Mktg., Managed Hosting and Cloud Services Please note that the insights and opinions expressed in this assessment are those of Frost & Sullivan and have been developed through the Frost & Sullivan research and analysis process. These expressed insights and opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the company executives interviewed. CC 3-6, September 2013 Frost & Sullivan, 2013 Page 5

5 focusing on the value proposition of Disaster Recovery as a Service. We also provide an overview of key characteristics of a strong disaster recovery solution. Finally, we review selected providers in the DRaaS space, identifying their product strengths and the cost models used in pricing such services. Solving the Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Challenge for SMBs Businesses have an increasing focus on potential disasters and how to maintain operations, or recover, in the wake of them. SMBs, particularly, recognize their need for simple, cost-effective solutions to help them resume operations after an emergency. Smaller organizations may not carry as much insurance to help them in the wake of a disaster; and their cushion of resources to help them recover is typically smaller as well. Coupling their potentially inadequate resources with the unrelenting need to maintain regulatory compliance even in times of trouble creates a significant challenge for SMBs to solve. Cloud SMBs, particularly, recognize their need for simple, cost-effective solutions to help them resume operations after an emergency. Coupling their potentially inadequate resources with the unrelenting need to maintain regulatory compliance even in times of trouble creates a significant challenge for SMBs to solve. technology can provide an effective solution that balances protection with budget and other resources. Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Despite knowledge of the need for business continuity and disaster recovery, many businesses do not take adequate steps to secure their IT. Planning and implementation for IT business continuity and disaster recovery is complex. For large, well-funded businesses, a typical solution may involve creating a redundant IT environment in a different data center, and paying for the site to remain hot ; meaning that the secondary site has all of the necessary connectivity and available infrastructure capacity turned on, at all times, in order to facilitate an immediate fail-over, in the event of an emergency. In addition to redundant facilities, data may also be backed up to some sort of physical asset, such as tapes, drives, or servers, and stored separately. In the event of an emergency, these backups may be shipped to either a secondary facility that is operational, or to the primary site after the disaster is over and access is restored. Because of the numerous considerations to recreate an operational environment, consulting services from leading providers of BCDR services are often employed to ensure the business is adequately protected. However, the complexity and cost of an adequate solution are beyond the means of most small businesses, which stand to lose the most from business outages. The U.S. Small Business Administration estimates that a minimum of one in every four small businesses will never reopen following a disaster, indicating there is clear need to protect business from failure due to lack of business continuity. This offers cloud service providers an opportunity to help bridge this gap by offering cost-effective, easy-to-implement BCDR solutions that target SMBs. Bridging the Gap: Disaster Recovery in the Cloud Disaster recovery options in the cloud have evolved significantly in the last months, with more automation and service-based options making disaster recovery easy to implement and deploy, and more cost effective. DRaaS is comprised of a set of processes that automate the backup of data; and, CC 3-6, September 2013 Frost & Sullivan, 2013 Page 6