AC/DC said it best,—“You’ve been Thunderstruck:” your expensive DR plan has been pushed back into the next fiscal year, like it probably was for the previous 3 years.  If you had only known about a more cost effective method to provide your organization with true DR, the company might have bought into it. Fortunately, there is such an option.

You already know that disasters of various types can strike your business at any time. Fires, floods, lightning strikes, malware attacks and other calamities can and do happen. Thankfully, these aren’t frequent occurrences for most of us – but when they do take place, woe to the unprepared.

In my last blog post, I discussed Backup as a Service (BaaS) and its ability to safeguard data and get problem-plagued companies up and running again within a reasonable time frame. BaaS is a great safeguard for companies that are able to access and use backup data in the event of a disruption – companies that still have access to their hardware, software and network, and which can afford the time it takes to get the backed-up data in place. But what happens when even a “reasonable” delay stands to severely damage or disrupt your business?

The more time-sensitive your business is and the more complex your information architecture, the more likely it is that you need more protection than BaaS can provide. That’s where DRaaS – Disaster Recovery as a Service – comes in.

Like BaaS, DRaaS backs up and safeguards all of your business data. Unlike BaaS, it also replicates your entire production environment, mirroring your servers, storage, applications and networks in operable form. An operable virtual clone of your entire information infrastructure is established and continually updated. In the event of a disaster, this virtual environment springs to life, ready to be used in almost exactly the same way as your regular production environment.

Historically, robust disaster recovery solutions haven’t been available to small or mid-sized businesses. The traditional DR model required companies to purchase or lease a full complement of redundant hardware and software, and to keep it running at all times, an investment that few businesses could afford. Advances in cloud technology have mostly eliminated this cost barrier: Scalable, customized DRaaS plans enable companies to precisely define the level of protection needed, paying only a fraction of traditional DR costs. In the event of a disaster, the virtual system is “spun up” within a predetermined time frame, and client companies pay only for services as they are needed and used.

Is it worth it for small and mid-sized businesses to pursue DRaaS solutions? More and more often, the answer is yes – especially when they calculate the costs of lost data and prolonged downtime. Like a good insurance policy, DRaaS is a service that companies hope that they’ll never use, but are certainly glad to have when it’s needed.  DRaaS is completely customizable, enabling it to serve as a cost-effective solution for virtually any and all companies.  So before thunder does strike, you might want to investigate a DRaaS solution delivered by someone “Who’ll stop the rain.”